


The Forgotten Prophecy

by MaybeItsNotPerfect



Series: The Forgotten Prophecy [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Spiritual Beliefs, Angst, Canon Divergence, Eventual Romance, Found Family, Friendship, Garrison trio, Jealous Lance (Voltron), Lance and Allura practically fight over Keith but not really, M/M, Post Season 2, Slow Burn, a prophecy, actual bonding, actual character growth, klance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaybeItsNotPerfect/pseuds/MaybeItsNotPerfect
Summary: When Shiro disappears from inside the black lion, the team do what they can to find him. Without Shiro around to glue the team together, they must forge stronger connections with each other and become a real family. Through this, Allura and Keith of all people open up to each other about things they haven't told the others about, and Allura tells Keith about a prophecy most Galra believed in ten thousand years ago. A prophecy that they later realize lines up eerily with the actions of a certain Prince.This is a slow burn Klance fic, so please wait patiently for that part.
Relationships: Allura & Keith (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: The Forgotten Prophecy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157474
Comments: 2
Kudos: 57





	1. Hidden Anger

One thing was for sure, this would be difficult.

The team was in disarray. Once they had gathered back together at the Castle of Lions and peered inside of the cockpit of the black lion, they stared at the empty pilot's chair without moving for too long. The first to leave was Allura. Not because she cared about Shiro the least, not because she knew she should find Coran and tell him what had happened, but because she knew what the black lion was capable of. Shiro could be somewhere else, waiting for the team to find him and bring him home. She left quietly, without disturbing the others. It only seemed appropriate to not break the silence.

Pidge left next. Although she didn't know what Allura did about the black lion, she knew that people didn't just disappear. Especially not from the inside of a sealed and heavily protected cockpit of a "magical" robotic weapon that seemed to have sustained no damage. Pidge needed equipment. She needed to figure out what happened so that she could determine how the impossible appeared to be possible. If the "universe" really did have some sort of consciousness that was beyond her scientific understanding like Allura always insists to her, then there was no way it would take away their leader like that. There was no way the universe would destroy their most important key to saving the universe. No. Pidge would go find Allura and insist that they help each other figure out what had happened.

There was a long time before any of the remaining three made a move at all. Both Hunk and Lance were staring at the back of the chair Keith was resting his hand on. Hunk was surprised when he finally glanced to his side to see tear streaks down Lance's face. He had expected to cry long before Lance would. But he supposed that would depend on who accepted what this looked like first. Hunk couldn't accept this yet. It felt like a dream. Too surreal to actually be reality. Let alone the reality they were living in.

But even through the shock and disbelief that fuzzed his mind, he recognized something important. Hunk gently placed his hand on Lance's shoulder intent on getting them both out of there. Lance failed to flinch, nor did he acknowledge Hunk's presence at all. Hunk shook his shoulder to convince Lance to look at him. Lance reluctantly turned his head, after which he moved his eyes to find Hunk's. Hunk gestured with his eyes toward Keith and then returned them to Lance and flicked his head in the direction of the exit. Lance didn't move, clearly not wanting to leave, but when Hunk flicked his head back at Keith, Lance looked over at him for the first time since entering the cockpit. Keith had no expression at all on his face. Maybe that look at him was enough convincing for Lance because he turned his back on both Keith and the empty chair and after a deep breath, let Hunk lead him out of the lion.

The others couldn't say how long Keith remained in the black lion. No one saw him that night nor the next morning. It wasn't until mid-afternoon when Allura, of all people, found him on the training deck.

She supposed this wasn't too surprising, they each dealt with their own day-to-day traumas in their own ways. Allura couldn't judge anyway. Her way of dealing with these things was to not deal with them. Hence why she still hadn't dealt with her entire civilization having been destroyed. She guessed the others never realized. They probably assumed that she cried when she was alone and held things together when she was not. But no, she herself was still a child of sorts. She had never experienced major trauma before that, and there was no one left to tell her how to deal with it now.

She stood by the door and watched as Keith violently destroyed gladiator after gladiator. He swung his sword in wide, uncontrolled arcs, putting all malice and vitriol into his grunts and roars. Allura wondered, somewhat detachedly, what Keith thought right now. Did he think Shiro was dead?

It seemed absurd that Keith would accept something like that without a lifeless body to prove it to him. But then again, that's what Lance had thought until this morning when he and Hunk had walked into the control room to find both her and Pidge with bags under their eyes after a night spent staring at screens looking for the signal from Shiro's suit. She and Coran had eventually decided that they'd need a search pattern as they were not currently close enough to Shiro for his signal to reach them. In the mean time, Pidge had gone down to the hangers and was taking readings of the black lion. Keith knew none of this. He was here and hadn't been around anyone living all day.

Allura decided that she wasn't going to let Keith's presence stop her from doing what she had come here to do. She walked over to the training equipment and picked out a sturdy metal staff.

"End training sequence," she commanded the Castle.

"Hey!" Keith spun to yell at her as the gladiators around him disappeared.

But Allura didn't say anything, she marched up to Keith and leapt into a powerful arced strike over Keith's head. Keith blocked it with his sword and a grunt, but even then he still had to brace the end of his blade against his other hand. They separated and Allura started circling him. Keith crouched and never let Allura have his back. He'd have to be much more controlled with Allura. He assumed she had years more fighting experience than he did.

Allura struck first again, using both sides of her staff to force Keith to step back with every parry he made. Keith had his teeth gritted, Allura had her eyes squinted. They were watching each other's eyes rather than their weapons. Allura could tell Keith was furious, but he wasn't complaining.

Keith glance over his shoulder, sensing the danger of getting close to a wall. Allura saw this and immediately went to swipe at Keith's legs. Keith jumped up and to the side to avoid getting any closer to the wall, but Allura spun her weight so that the other end of her staff drove Keith straight to the ground with a hit to the chest. Before Keith could ungrit his teeth enough to release an "Ack!" Allura had gone for the kill shot and stopped just before making contact with his neck.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment. Then Allura withdrew her staff and walked back to the center of the training room. After watching her, Keith stood up and returned to the center as well, crouching back into a defensive position.

Hours later, when the two of them were both overly sweaty and exhausted, the door to the training deck swooshed open. With her back to the door and her focus still on Keith, Allura called out, "Not now Shiro! We'll come to dinner after I finish Keith off!"

Keith's face immediately changed to a look of hurt and his arms went slack at his sides. Allura couldn't stop her swing in time to keep her staff from smacking Keith across the face.

Allura dropped her weapon and rushed to grab Keith's face and rub his purpling cheek. "I'm so sorry, Keith! I didn't mean to! Are you alright?" she asked him, horrified for two reasons.

"I'm fine," Keith said in a barely audible voice.

His eyes were refusing to meet hers. He kept them off to the side and Allura's frown deepened. Why had she forgotten about the very reason she was in here? How could she have forgotten the reality that she just wanted a break from? Oh, right! That was the exact purpose of what both of them were doing, training until they were so exhausted that they'd forget everything. Maybe this hadn't been her best attempt at dealing with things yet.

"Actually, since you've been here for so long, I thought I'd bring you some water," Allura looked over to see Coran holding up a bottle filled with cold water. "I see you found an opponent then?"

Allura looked back to Keith but didn't say anything. She was still rubbing at his cheek.

"It's getting quite late. Everyone else already ate dinner, it's just you two." Coran craned his neck to the side to try and see Keith's face behind Allura's shoulder. "I was going to look for you, Keith, after getting the Princess. You should both eat something," Coran said softly.

Keith didn't budge from his spot so Allura looked back to Coran for help.

"Especially you, Keith. I know you haven't eaten all day. You missed dinner last night too." After a beat of waiting Coran motioned grandly with his hand, "Come now! What could eating something hurt?"

Keith looked at them but his expression was worryingly blank.

"Keith, if you eat with me, I'll tell you what we've all been doing since last night. We think Shiro may just be missing and we're trying to find him," Allura explained in a soft and tender voice. She should have told him this earlier, but Keith had been a convenient opponent for Allura's own turmoil.

Keith's whole face opened up, his body language went from withdrawn to receptive at the turn of a dime. "What?" was all he could say.

Allura smiled with her mouth but not with her eyes. "Let's eat and I'll tell you about it."

Keith nodded, agreeing.

Allura went to put the staff she had used away and Keith waited for her with his bayard clipped to his hip.

"Good then. And afterwards, you two must get some sleep! You'll go straight to bed, the both of you," Coran insisted in a kind manner.

"Someone has to watch the monitor," Allura said.

"I believe Hunk and Lance went to bed last night. The two of them can take shifts while those of us who stayed up all night get some rest."

Allura sighed. "Very well then. We shall eat and then sleep," she agreed as she gently grabbed Keith's arm.

"Thank you, Princess. I feel better already!" Coran stopped Keith before they could pass him by shoving the water bottle into his chest. "It looks like you might need this more than the Princess does. No water breaks all day, eh?"

Keith took it and managed a half smile for Coran. "Thanks," he said as softly as the Alteans had been speaking to him.

Coran managed a full smile. "As I've tried to tell all of the paladins before, we're in all of this together now. The good and the bad, we'll share it all."

Keith didn't know what to think of that, so he just quirked one side of his lips upward again.

"What if we somehow increase the range of our sensors?"

"I told you, we're handling it. Pidge is already working on a way to do exactly that. I'll think of something for you to do, I promise," Allura responded with a hint of frustration edging her tone.

"Well I can't just sit around!" Keith retorted with every bit of the frustration Allura was trying to hide.

"I know, I'm not telling you to do nothing, I just—"

"What if we use the lions to extend the range! I could fly out to the edge of the Castle's range and scan from there," Keith interrupted right as he thought of it.

Allura took the idea in. "Actually, that's given me an idea. I could ask Pidge to—"

"So it could work, great!" Keith ran for the hanger with the red lion without waiting for Allura's permission.

"Wait, Keith..." Allura trailed off as she kept thinking. She knew he was gone anyway.

"Morning, Princess!"

Allura jumped out of her skin and made a cute squeak when Lance's hand came down on her shoulder. "Lance!" she huffed with her hand over her chest to calm herself down.

Lance smiled at her but then looked in the direction Keith had gone. "What happened to Keith's face?" he asked.

"Oh. It's just a bruise. He insisted on leaving it to heal on its own."

"Classic Keith!" Lance rolled his eyes. "So, uh, you aren't going to stop him?"

Lance seemed concerned to Allura but she figured if she mentioned it, this conversation would end quickly. And Allura hadn't talked to anyone but Keith since last night when Coran had come to force them to dinner. Keith had been in a bad mood the entire time. Not that she could blame him, nor any of the other paladins if they started acting the same way. But still, Lance had been much more chipper than any of them once he had heard of their plan to find Shiro.

"No, he needs something to do and he was right, that was a good idea. But it's given me an even better idea to pitch to Pidge."

"Really? What is it?"

Allura resumed walking but changed her course to the control room where she was most likely to find Pidge while Lance followed her. "We could make signal beacons and launch them all over. If we could make enough of them and disperse them far enough, we could have an entire sensor grid that we could continue to use even after we find Shiro."

Lance frowned at that. "Uh, forgive me Princess but, that sounds like a pretty obvious plan. Why haven't you done that before now?"

"Obvious?" Allura looked to have taken offense.

"I don't mean anything bad," Lance immediately backtracked. "It's just something common in Earth sci-fi stories and video games."

Allura raised an eyebrow at him.

"And they're usually something the enemy has and destroying it is what helps save the day."

Allura huffed again. "If you must know, back before I was cryogenically frozen for ten thousand years, Zarkon had only taken over a small cluster of solar systems, including my own, at the very end of it."

Lance bit his lip, his brows furrowed in anxiety. "I'm sorry Allura, I didn't mean to."

Allura's sudden anger turned into guilt when she heard Lance say the exact words she had said to Keith last night. "All is forgiven," she said with a held dignity. But then she deflated a little when the guilt didn't go away. "I'm sorry, I'm still tired from the night before last. I've been... snappy."

Lance's face was soft when he said, "You're allowed to be snappy sometimes, all is forgiven."

Allura had to turn her gaze from him. She didn't know why, but she knew she couldn't handle that expression right in that moment.

Lance decided to change the subject. "Well, I was about to go take a nap, but if Keith's idea really works, maybe I could take Blue out and help him while you and Pidge work on the signal beacons. I'll need something to do too." Lance was forced to pause by a yawn. "You know, after I take my nap," he grinned at Allura.

Allura smiled back this time. "Yes, that would be helpful." She stopped short of being close enough to the control room doors for them to open automatically. "Hunk is asleep isn't he? I'll need his help to construct the beacons once he awakens."

"There, you see. We're all working together! That's what Shiro would want."

Allura couldn't help but feel somber at Lance's cheery words. Her smile was delicate and a little sad. "Yes, I suppose that is what he'd want."

Lance noticed her mood but instead of changing his strategy, gave her even more cheer. "We'll tell him all about it when we find him. I'm sure he'll be proud of the way you took charge while he was gone."

The Princess in Allura force her to smile pleasantly even though she didn't want to. Lance was being sweet, but she hardly felt like it was deserved. A lot of things happened in that final battle.

"Alright," Lance turned, "I'm headed off to bed! See you soon, Princess."

"Lance, wait!" Allura stopped him before he could get far. "When you go out there, could you stick with Keith? He's not... himself right now," she tried to explain.

Lance turned back to her. "Keith? Is he grumpy, irritable, prone to outbursts?"

"Yes, but— Oh! You know what I mean! I know you can tell the difference just as well as the rest of us!" Allura shouted in annoyance.

Lance snickered like he was enjoying this all too much. His grin and the squint of his eyes spoke of mischief. "Wouldn't it be more efficient for me to work on the opposite side of the Castle's sensor range? I'm not exactly known for making Keith calmer anyway."

"Your job would be to keep him from doing anything stupid!"

"Hmm, I think I'd rather just sleep in," Lance continued to tease.

"Lance, if you really consider me a Princess, you will do as I say!" Allura huffed trying to look regal in her robes.

Lance hummed and moved his eyes from corner to corner pretending to think about it. "A valid point. I accept," Lance pivoted to turn his back on her but still held her gaze over his shoulder. She was clearly still too tired not to fall for teasing. Perhaps she had been too tired to sleep last night.

"Good!" Allura roared at him. "Now go to sleep!"

"I will."

"Go on!"

"Sure thing!" Lance took deliberately slow and exaggerated steps away from her.

Allura let out an extremely frustrated noise. "Just go!"

Lance nodded with a suddenly serious face. "I'm agreeing with you."

Allura gathered her dress in her hands and marched into the control room with a swift turn and never a look back. Pidge was at one of the consoles, or, under it. She had taken one of the panels off and was looking at the wiring. She crawled out from underneath when she heard Allura stomping.

"Did I hear Lance? I thought he was going to bed after I relieved him."

"He is now!" Allura shouted indignantly.

Pidge snorted. "Did Lance piss you off?"

"I am not—" Allura stopped herself from using the same phrase Pidge had, it didn't translate well into Altean. Her face relaxed before saying, "Actually, speaking to him was quite refreshing."

Pidge chuckled again. "Classic Lance! So annoying, you can't help but enjoy it," she grinned and then returned to under the console.

"Lance said the same thing about Keith," Allura ponder aloud.

"What?" Pidge asked in confusion.

"Lance said, 'Classic Keith' just earlier," Allura mimicked the way he had said it.

"Oh, that's what you meant."

Allura leaned against the console Pidge was working with. "What exactly does that mean?"

Pidge scooted out so that she could peer up at Allura's face. "It means that the person was exhibiting expected behavior," she explained.

"I see," Allura thought back to both behaviors that warranted that saying. "Why does Lance act like that?"

In the time it took Allura to think, Pidge had already gotten back to work. "I don't know. Maybe because he's the youngest of... four? I think? With lots of older siblings that probably thought he was annoying even when he wasn't trying to be, I think it makes sense. I annoyed my brother all the time."

Allura slowly walked over to the head console and looked over their flight plan. "I see," she said quietly.

Pidge heard something in the tone of Allura's voice that made her pause and push herself out so that she could sit up. "What?"

Allura continued to scan the edges of what their sensors could pick up. "I never knew that Lance had older siblings."

Pidge only stared trying to figure out if the Princess was upset or not.

"I believe there's a primordial black hole in this region of space," she circled an area with her finger. "The gravity just isn't right in this area. We'll have to go around it." Allura input new data into the panel in front of her and the Castle corrected their flight plan.

Pidge walked over and looked at the monitor for herself. She came to the same conclusion and with that in mind, decided to move on.

"I've been looking into the way the Castle's sensors work and I'm pretty sure increasing the range gets more and more difficult the further out you want to increase them. I have an idea of how I could redesign them since it looks like the Alteans maxed out the range with this configuration. I'm not sure my design will work yet, but I know how to put it back if we give it a try."

"Won't you have to take the sensors offline to do that? We'd have to come to a stop, it's too dangerous to fly the ship blind."

"I was thinking of isolating the relay in this console," Pidge gestured to the one that's insides she'd been studying. "It would temporarily decrease the range of our sensors, but it would be easy to test if it works. If it does, the range should increase once we connect it again. Then I could do the same to all of the relays."

"Fascinating!" Allura marveled. "It would be worth a try. I actually had another idea."

"Really? What is it?" Pidge dove back under the console and started detaching certain wires.

"Keith made me think of it actually. He wanted to use the lions' sensors to scan beyond the Castle's range. So I was thinking, we could use that same principle to make signal beacons and make our own sensor grid. We could scan as far out as we have beacons as long as each beacon is in range of another," she said hopefully.

"Mm, I don't think so."

"What?" Allura said sounding shocked. "Why not?"

Pidge sighed and rolled over and sat back up again. "Because, making something like that requires too much time and resources. Those things are usually easy to hack, so I'd have to put a lot of safety measures in place, they could easily get stolen and we could only deploy them as we move. It won't tell us about anywhere we haven't already been."

"But, what if Shiro is trying to find us? Say he finds out where we've been and he tries to follow us? If he gets in range of a beacon, we'd know to turn around!" Allura insisted.

"Okay, but that doesn't change the fact that it'll take too much time and too many resources. One of those resources being my limited brain power. Coran may have made me eat and go to bed last night, but I didn't get much sleep. I'm already splitting my focus between the sensors on the Castle and the readings Coran is taking for me of the black lion. I'd prefer to only focus on one task at once, but I'm already working on two." Pidge massaged her temples briefly, revealing how tired she really was. None of them had had a break after the battle.

"If we had more people, then I'd think about it, but we're only a crew of six right now and I'm the only one with the coding expertise to program all of this equipment to do new things. I just can't do it all."

Allura didn't know what to say. She didn't want Pidge to be this stressed, but she still thought her idea was important. If only there were someone else who could help.

"There are ten of us."

"Ten?"

"Yes, you forgot my mice."

Pidge looked at Allura like she had missed her point entirely. But then she remembered something. "Slav!"

Allura stood up straighter. "Slav!"

"Where is that ungrateful, slimy worm?!"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him since the battle with Zarkon! What's he been doing this whole time?"

"Do you think he escaped? Alright Princess, if you can find Slav, I will," Pidge's face twisted as if she had eaten something extremely bitter, "work together with him on both the Castle and the beacons."

Allura's face soured as well. "I'll get right on it! The mice can help me track him down," Allura started for the door, using her telepathy to to send the mice marching orders.

"Allura, one more thing," Pidge stood to smile at her, still tried.

"Yes?"

"If you liked talking to Lance then don't give him a hard time even when he gives you a hard time. He'll probably tell you lots of things that way. He likes talking to himself at people."

"Oh, I see. I'll try that then." Allura had no idea what that meant but she really would try that at some point, if given the opportunity. She smiled at Pidge, still confused and ran along.

Once Pidge was sure Allura was far enough away, she went to the center console and pulled up the Castle's intercom system, selecting only the speaker in Lance's room and speaking into the mic, "You better thank me for this later, Lance."

If Lance had fallen asleep yet, he'd be pissed at her. Pidge chuckled to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited about this idea I have. This is my first fic (I needed an idea I found worth it), so I'd love any feedback you're willing to offer. I'd also be happy to answer some questions if you have any. I don't know what else to say here. Please enjoy :)


	2. Everyone Likes Lance

"Keith, buddy, it's time to go back," Lance approached Red with Blue.   


"Go away, Lance. You haven't been out here in three days, there's no way I'm listening to you."  


Lance frowned more deeply. Here he was, so far out in space that the Castle of Lions couldn't pick up their comm signals, all with concern for Keith, just to have him imply that he wasn't helping enough. Lance had been helping! He'd been doing a lot lately! Keith wouldn't know though, he's barely been back at the Castle at all.   


"Have you been sleeping out here? I bet you put rations in Red and you've been worrying Coran for nothing! I'm just a messenger right now. Coran wanted me to tell you to come back so that he could feed you and make you sleep," Lance nudged at Keith's feelings on purpose. For some reason, the only person Keith would listen to about eating and sleeping was Coran.   


There was a pause before Keith said anything. "I'm not going back," Keith said as an absolute.   


Lance sighed loudly into the comm. Keith wasn't letting them use the video feed so Lance had no facial clues about what to say to convince Keith to come back with him.   


"Listen, I've been piloting Blue for seven hours straight to find you way out here. My butt hurts from sitting in one place for so long and there's no way you can be doing anyone any good with how tired you are! I saw you when you were leaving yesterday, you were exhausted then, I don't know how you could be functional now! And we have a seven hour trip back, so let's go!" Lance circled Blue around Red and then started heading back for the Castle.   


"I told you, I'm not going!" Keith yelled back.   


Lance stopped his lion and let go of the controls. He took a deep breath to try and keep himself under control. "Why not?" he said with curbed anger.   


"Because all of you are ready to give up!" Keith yelled so loudly Lance wished he could cover his ears through his helmet. It'd been fifteen days now. "I could sense it the last time I was at the Castle, all of you had that look on your faces! Allura tried to stop me before I left! I know what she was going to tell me, but I'm not going to give up! I'll keep looking on my own if I have to! You can go back and tell the others that."  


Keith started to fly his lion further away but Lance swooped around him and cut him off.   


"Oh no you don't! Keith, we are not giving up!" Lance said resolutely. "Slav will continue to improve our signal beacons and he'll be deploying them no matter where we go. We'll always have someone looking for his signal, but he can't be our biggest priority much longer. I know it sucks, but the universe didn't stop needing us! Pidge, Hunk and I have been taking turns answering distress signals. We need you back with us. We need you to help the team. Stop trying to do everything on your own! It doesn't help, it just hurts the rest of us!" Lance criticized.   


"But you are giving up," Keith said in a more level tone. "None of you know Shiro like I do, none of you know anything about him."  


Lance growled and banged his fist against Blue's console. "Dammit Keith! That may very well be true, but it's not our fault we didn't get to grow up with him! You're acting like none of us care about him at all! He's our leader, he's made each of us feel like we actually belong here! He's given each of us a second home here! I don't know what to do without him! Neither do the others! But we know we can't do anything without you!" Lance soften his tone for the next part. "If he loves you even half as much as you love him, there's no way Shiro would want you to exile yourself from Voltron. Shiro would want us to still do our jobs. What would he tell you if he were here?"  


Keith took a long time to answer, but Lance waited nonetheless.   


"Patience yields focus."  


Lance wondered how Keith came to those words, but he could run with it, so he did. "Then be patient. Shiro won't stop until he's back with us again, so wait for him. He'll come home."  


After a moment, Keith's face appeared on Lance's screen. He wasn't looking at Lance, he seemed to be looking at the floor.   


"I'm sorry," was all he said.   


Lance had to smile wryly. "It's alright, buddy. Let's just go... home," for lack of a better term.   


Keith nodded and then his face disappeared from Lance's screen again. But the red lion turned around and set a course for the Castleship. 

"Like I said, there is a ninety-eight point four percent chance that your friend is dead. Continuing this task is an exercise in futility," Slav ducked back behind his chair even before Pidge threw her wrench at him, as if he had known that would happen.   


"Shut up and get back to helping me!" Pidge shouted, picking up another tool to hurl at him.   


"Woah, woah! Pidge. Put the screwdriver down," Lance got in Pidge's line of fire.   


"Lance? You're back!" Pidge temporarily forgot her current vexation. "Did you bring Keith?"  


"Yes, I brought Keith. I even made sure Coran was waiting for him when he docked his lion. After fourteen and a half hours of flying, I only really came to check on your progress. In case Mullet-head decides to yell at me again, I need information to yell back at him," Lance explained wearily.   


Pidge turned angry again. "Well, I'm sure we'd be making plenty of progress if that slug stopped avoiding work!" She winded up her arm again like she was about to throw the screwdriver. "Move out of my way Lance, he's had this coming for a while now!"  


"No, no. No, no." Lance went and grabbed the projectile from her hand.   


"Hey," she whined.   


"Even if he deserves it, you shouldn't let him goad you. I'll try, okay?"  


Pidge let herself fall back into her chair in a dramatic manner. They had been working in the green lion's hanger to keep the mess of scrap metal and robotic parts somewhat contained. Lance had been nice enough to keep from disturbing Pidge as much as possible by handling most of the distress signals by himself or having Hunk help him. Honestly though, Pidge could use a break from Slav. Lance would keep that in mind whenever they received another distress signal.   


"Fine, do what you want," Pidge waved Lance off as she hung her head over the back of her chair. Somehow, she seemed to sink further into it.   


Lance walked carefully over to where Slav was hiding. He didn't know what he could get yelled at for stepping on.   


"What is it you want?" Slav asked as he approached in the clipped accented way of his.   


"Slav, you like Shiro, don't you?" Lance began.   


"Like? Like?! This _Shiro_ of yours is most likely dead in this reality. It is not a matter of liking or disliking!" Slav widened his eyes dramatically to put punch in the word dead. "We are wasting resources that could be used to save us in at least forty thousand different scenarios!"  


Pidge groaned and flipped around on her chair so that the front of her neck was now hanging over the back.   


"Okay, but for the sake of argument, you like Shiro, don't you? He did break you out of Galra prison," Lance enticed him into answering.   


Slav squinted a him. "What is your point?" he said quickly, in a low tone.   


"My point is, you thought it was nearly impossible not to die that day and yet Shiro got you out. You owe him for that, he didn't give up on you even when you caused him a lot of trouble."  


"Caused him trouble?! I saved us both from meeting a terrible end countless times that day!" Slav crossed two sets of his arms and turned his head away from Lance.   


"As I was saying," Lance continued anyway. "You owe Shiro. Think about what a bad omen you'd have hanging over you if you didn't try your best to help him, even if the chances are low."  


"Nice try, but statistical realities don't account for _omens_ , good or bad," Slav made various hand gestures when explaining to him.   


Pidge groaned again.   


"But karma!" Slav pointed a finger to the ceiling. "Karma is very real, and so for the sake of karma, I will continue to help with this juvenile task."  


"What?!" Pidge squeaked in outraged as she bolted up from her chair.   


"I said I would help. It is irrational to react this way," Slav recrossed his sets of arms at her.   


Pidge took a deep breath as she wiped her hand slowly down her face.   


"Pidge," Lance chided. "Don't touch your face like that, you'll break out."  


Pidge looked to Lance. "How Lance? How do you do it?"  


Lance grinned wolfishly, "I'm just good with people."   


Pidge took that as a challenge and grinned back, "If you're so good with people, I should tell Coran to appoint you the official Keith-Magic-Charm! Anytime he goes off to do something stupid, oh look! We have something for that! Just send Lance after him!"  


Lance's grin fell. "You would not."  


"I don't know. You did bring Keith back from who knows where. I think you have a calling."  


"Slav is way easier to deal with than Keith is!"  


"Are you two going to stand around talking all day or are you going to work on this futile project?" Slav interjected as he was sifting through a pile of what looked like junk, throwing things over his shoulder every now and then.   


Pidge sighed again. "Fine, we're working together again. Don't expect me to forget when you threw that sheet metal at me!"  


"He what?!"

Lance instinctively went through Blue's pre-flight sequence as he was getting ready to leave her hanger with her. He didn't know what every pushed button or flipped switch did in this process, he just knew what needed to be done to get her flying smoothly. After months of flying her, Blue hardly did anything for him anymore, trusting him to know what to do when and how to treat her well. But Lance was tried right now. He was going back out with her again after only fours hours of being back from getting Keith. Unwise? Yes. But Lance had been hiding how tired he was pretty well. And besides, there was something about being connecting with Blue that gave Lance energy again. So as soon as the light on his dash lit up indicating the lion's intercom system was connected, he had Blue send a signal to Green.   


"Alright Pidge, Hunk's cookies are in the oven so let's crush this mission so we can get back and stuff our faces!"  


Pidge responded right away. "I'll amen to that!" and they were off.   


They passed through the portal Allura had opened for them and exited in the vicinity of a planet identified as Durra. As per the plan, Lance headed straight for the planet, guns blazing, shooting at the invading Galra forces while Pidge went the more covert route and only got closer once she had cloaked the green lion.   


There was a single battleship in orbit with many fighter ships on their way to enter the atmosphere. Several uniform ships of a configuration and colors Lance had never seen before were attempting to fend off the Galra fighters but they were outnumbered.   


Lance covered the alien ships, shooting at the Galra and taking shots aimed at them so that they would know he was there to help them. The fighter ships didn't have powerful enough weapons to do anything but shake him up, it was the battleship with its ion canon that he had to worry about.   


"Lance, I think you should hear this." Pidge did something that let Lance hear static from some type of transmission. "They just talked about seeing the blue lion."  


_"_ _Copy. Confirmed."_ Lance heard between static.   


"Woah, Pidge, what did you do? What was that?"   


"That, Lance, was a Galra transmission. You didn't seriously think I could go two weeks working with Slav on signal transmissions and not trick Green out, did you?" Pidge was audibly smirking.   


Lance shook his head, "By no means, my genius friend." Lance gasped as he had to suddenly dodge a blast from the ion canon.   


_"Still no sign of the red or black lions."_  


_"Confirmed."_  


_"Inform the Commander."_  


_"Copy. Confirmed."_  


"Lance! Be careful where you're flying! That shot almost hit the planet!" Pidge shouted in alarm.   


"I know, I saw that. Did you hear what they said?" Lance steered his lion to the side of the battleship and continued his assault from there.   


"I heard it. They've noticed that Keith and Shiro haven't been around. I think they're trying to figure out what kind of damage we took. Just like we're trying to do with them."  


Lance struggled to keep his eyes open as he worked through a yawn. He cut it short to steer clear of oncoming fire. He performed a barrel roll under the huge belly of the battleship and came out on the other side avoiding another shot from the deadly canon. He surprised two fighters by popping up behind them and destroying them before they could finish off the ship they were chasing.   


"So are you saying I should bring Keith next time? We've been doing fine without backup. These missions have only been tiring, not super life threatening. Which means I'm sure Keith wouldn't be interested," Lance said a bit more bitterly than he had intended.   


"You're right," Pidge pondered aloud.   


Lance jolted Blue in his surprise but he didn't feel her expected annoyance. "I'm right?" he questioned.   


"These battles have been tiring because they've been happening so often but they're relatively easy. They're more conservative than aggressive. I think they still seem organized, but... less confident?"  


"Oh." It was probably for the best that Pidge ignored what he had said about Keith. "What does that mean?"  


"It means—"  


_"Ion canon is charged. Ready to fire."_  


Lance moved Blue out of the way just in time, to the misfortune of the Galra fighter behind him.   


"Why did I get a warning that time?" Lance spat out while he was being chased around the battleship.   


"I can only pick up the transmissions I'm close enough to."  


Lance's eyes suddenly blurred a little. He shook his head and blinked hard to try and get them to focus.   


"I've gotten as much intel as I can now. Moving on to phase two. You won't hear from me for a while now," Pidge informed him before the comm went silent.   


Sure, Lance might be having an issue with how tired he was, but the mission was still going as planned. Pidge would go to the surface of the planet and give tactical information to the Durran military so that they could start defending themselves effectively. All Lance had to do was keep the Galra occupied up in space. No problem. If Lance hadn't already finished them off by the time Pidge finished, she'd be there to help him. He just had to hold out.   


His eyes cleared back up and he nosedived into a loop. Once the bellies of the three fighter ships following him were in his sights, he squeezed the trigger and his ray gun bisected them each in turn.   


Lance felt himself beginning to sweat which was usual for him. He had no room to take a break but he did seek temporary refuge behind one of his new allies when he started getting a headache. The small ship fired on the oncoming fighter, taking many more shots than the lions would have needed. The yellow painted ship kept firing, unloading everything its arsenal had to offer even when the fighter started flying directly at it. It became a game of chicken until the yellow ship hit the Galra just right for the ship to explode with only meters between them. The debris impacted the little yellow ship and the blue lion, but it sent the little one spiraling.   


Lance hadn't even seen it happen. He was busy smacking the top of his helmet and blinking hard again. "Come on, Lance! You're needed right now!" he told himself.   


He knew they had taken out a good number of the fighters and they had caused enough destruction that the Galra were bound to react soon. He needed to focus on the battleship. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself awake and turned Blue's eyes toward the biggest threat.   


He needed to get closer again. He weaved through the three dimensional battlefield fluidly, snake-like, trying to reach his target. He fired when a Galra fighter flew in his path but otherwise he left them to the yellow fleet that now had numbers over the Galra. His eyes were kept squinted looking for the signal. By the time he was close enough, he still had to destroy four more fighters and dodge the ion canon twice before the hanger doors to the battleship opened up ready to let more fighters join the fray. That's when Lance knew, their particle barrier would be down.   


Blue shot to the front of the battleship, too close for Galran comfort, until Lance could see through the windows of the command center. Lance didn't have the time nor the desire to see if the Galra aboard realized what Lance had planned. He simply let his laser vaporize a cut through the front windows and the pillars of the battleship's bridge, expelling the personnel into the frosty void.   


With no one to reactivate the particle barrier, Lance was left with however much time he wanted to take down their ion canon, but Lance needed no time at all. He took a single shot, straight down the barrel of the oversized weapon, and with the resulting explosion from where it was integrated into the ship, he was assured he had destroyed their last hope of using it against him.   


Lance wanted to breathe a sigh of relief but his actions caused all the new fighter ships the go after him. He started to turn his lion away from the attack but suddenly Blue wouldn't move. Lance's eyes glazed over and his headache started shooting its pain in pulses.   


"Huh? I'm too tired?" Lance slurred to himself. His thoughts were becoming foggy and everything seemed to be getting further away. Even his own head voice sounded like it was at the other end of an increasingly long tunnel.   


He had just enough time to wonder if he was passing out to be jolted back to alertness at the shutter of Blue's haul as she was pelted by Galran plasma weapons. Lance re-gripped the controls he hadn't noticed he'd let go of and flew in a circle around the battleship trying to escape his relatively small pursuers.   


Even with the particle barrier down, Lance was doubtful that he could destroy the whole ship on his own. If he were feeling better, perhaps he could do so, but at the moment he was starting to get a bit nauseous on top of everything. Why did going to work today have to be the worst decision he's made?   


He kept circling and circling trying to think of a way out of this situation. He was losing focus too often to turn on them and shoot and the yellow ships that had survived were all busy still fighting. Eventually Blue slowed to a stop and as much as Lance tried to get her to move, she wouldn't respond to him. At this point, Lance was sweating buckets. Usually Blue's presence kept him feeling cool, he never sweat inside her, especially not like this. He was beginning to feel his consciousness dim again.   


"What's happening Blue?" Lance tried her controls again. "Are you sick? I am sick? Are we both sick?" Lance barely had the energy to form words. "Why aren't you listening to me?"  


Lance was about to ask if she was mad at him when he had a sudden realization, seemingly from no where, that the Galra fighters had broken off their pursuit. He looked out to finally notice himself bathed in purple light.   


"Oh. Tractor beam."

"Lance! Lance! Laaaaaance!!"  


"Wha? Why are you yelling?" Lance said groggily. He felt like he had just woken up after a particularly bad night of sleep.   


"I destroyed their tractor beam, why aren't you moving?! Are you hurt? Do I need to come in there and help you?!" Pidge continued to yell with urgent concern.   


Lance finally gained awareness of his situation and sat up properly in his pilot chair. He felt no real injuries. He still had a headache but his vision was clear and he was fully alert again. Lance lifted his helmet off and felt like he could breathe. His suit had gotten humid with all of his sweat. He took hold of Blue's controls but nothing happened.   


Lance felt himself sweat even more. "I don't know what's wrong. Blue's not responding to me."  


"Something's wrong with her?"  


"I guess?" Lance said without any confidence. "I can't feel her like usual."  


"Okay, hold on! The Durrans have just about finished off the fighters, I think with their help I can destroy the battleship. I'll keep an eye on Blue!" Pidge presumably left Lance's side to rejoin the fray.   


Lance was blind. The screen in front of him was dark and sound waves don't travel where there aren't enough particles to carry a wave. He almost wished the battle was taking place a little closer to the planet. Just in the upper atmosphere so that he could hear the explosions taking place, hear if shots were near or far. Almost, but that wouldn't be fair to the Durrans now would it? He was in a box. He was in a box waiting for Pidge to come and get him. If Lance were claustrophobic this would be a nightmare. But the nightmare he was facing was something deeply more personal to him. He felt alone. He never wanted to be alone. Alone was dangerous, alone was too quiet, alone meant he couldn't distract himself. _Maybe everyone likes Lance, but Lance, himself._  


"Woo-hoo!" Pidge's shout startled Lance. She had done it. The battle was over.   


Thank goodness! He could get out of here soon! He'd never wanted to get out of Blue before.   


"Lance, we did it!" she cheered.   


"That's great! And the Durrans? They were nice to you?"  


"Lance! Seriously, don't worry so much about me. They're very... yellow," she chose her words carefully.   


Lance had to chuckle. So that's why they liked yellow.   


"How are we getting you home? You still can't move Blue?"  


"No, I can't even see out of her view screen."  


"Uh-oh. I'll call Hunk and have him help me tow you. I don't think Green can do it on her own."  


"No! Don't call Hunk! I don't want to bother him with this."  


"Okay, then I'll call Keith."  


"Don't!! Pidge, please, please Pidge! Do not call Keith. Keith cannot see me like this!" She knew that was all she had to say. Why was she like this?   


"Okay, then Hunk it is. I'm serious Lance, there's no way I'm making Green drag your fat ass and Blue back with her."  


"Okay, fine... call Hunk," Lance submitted to her will only ignoring her insult because what she failed to realize was that it was actually a compliment. Once Lance slightly altered the phrasing in his mind, this is.   


"I'll tell Hunk to bring the cookies," Pidge grinned.   


"Hunk and fresh cookies? That'll be just enough to put me to sleep."


	3. A Dose of Wholesome

Allura stood in front of the blue lion looking up at her. She felt small in the shadow of the giant machine. Allura had of course been up close to the lions countless times, but she couldn't remember a single time she'd been alone with one. She wanted to ask it why. Why was the lion acting like she didn't know Lance? Nothing like this had ever happened before. Then again, the lions had had only two paladins each so far. There wasn't a lot of history to go off of, despite their age. And as much as the others might think she understood them, she really didn't. They were her father's creation and even he didn't understand them completely. He had once told her that he was surprised when they seemed to gain sentience, that they had wills of their own. But it had improved his faith. Allura hadn't thought her father had any true faith until that day. Maybe...   


Allura didn't bow her head, but she did close her eyes. She thought for a long time about what she could say. It was difficult to find words, nothing sounded right and this whole thing felt weird.   


She groaned to herself and opened her eyes again. If her father were here he would instruct her to close her eyes and bow her head in submission to the prophets, but she wasn't here to show her respect or to speak to the prophets. She just wanted to speak to the lion in front of her. She decided she'd try again, but more causally.   


She took a deep breath. "Hello," she greeted. After a few moments of staring, she had to avert her eyes from the blue lion's. "I wanted to understand. What is it that you need? What do you want? What desire do you have that my team cannot meet?"  


She waited a long time but felt no answer coming forth. She sighed and approached Blue until she was able to rest a hand on one of her mighty legs. She rested her forehead against her hand, not realizing that she was essentially closing her eyes and bowing her head.   


"We really need you right now. We're already down a paladin, I don't know what I'll do if you really shut Lance out. Please, don't fight me on this," she whispered her plea.   


"Oh!"  


Allura whipped around to see who had caught her in a less than dignified position. Her face turned fuchsia to the point that her Altean markings on her cheeks disappeared.   


"Sorry Princess, I didn't think anyone else would be here. Were you talking to Blue?" Hunk asked with no judgement.   


The Princess gathered her wits and spoke as normally as she could. "I was." She then noticed that Hunk was holding a plate piled high with food goo.  


"Ah, well sorry to disturb you. Lance made me promise to check on Blue before he'd go to sleep. Not that I could really do much except talk to her and hear nothing back. I'm sure she listens though, so I brought my lunch with me." He held up his plate to show her. "Do you want me to come back later so that you can have more time with her?" Hunk pointed toward the door and turned halfway showing that he was perfectly willing to give her space.   


Hunk was always so considerate. Allura was impressed that someone could honestly think about others so much.   


"No," she stopped him. "Please, you can stay. I wasn't sure what else to say anyway."  


Hunk let himself more fully into the room and took up a spot sitting at Blue's feet. There was an awkward silence in which Hunk began eating and Allura just stood in place looking around the room. Apparently it was only awkward for Allura because Hunk suddenly looked over at Allura like she was doing something weird.   


"Aren't you going to sit?" he asked her.   


She hesitated for a lingering moment before kneeling and placing her butt down to one side. She sat as gracefully as she could on the floor in a dress.   


"So what do you think is up with Blue? Is something wrong with her," he asked causally.   


"I really don't know."  


Hunk didn't seem phased by her answer so she guessed he didn't expect her to know.   


"I was thinking about the lions and Voltron a lot lately. Like, why humans? I remember you saying that the lions chose us out of everyone in the entire universe, you said that the lions hadn't chosen new paladins for thousands of years. So why all humans? There's gotta be billions if not trillions of species out there, and we weren't even involved in the war before being chosen. I just can't imagine that humans are all that special."  


"Believe me, I understand the sentiment," Allura regretted saying it as soon as it left her mouth. Was that rude? Alteans would have found it rude if implied about their species. But it was true that Allura had thought the same thing. She took it as a sign from the universe that the blue lion showed back up with exactly five people, but inside she was bitter that the lions had chosen no Alteans. Granted the only Alteans left were her and Coran, but still, or perhaps even more so, she resented it.   


When Hunk only smiled at her, she was astonished. If every human were like Hunk, then perhaps she'd understand, but she knew that wasn't the case.   


"I'm sorry, what I mean is, it's not the human species that is special, it is you five specifically," she conceded.  


Hunk continued to smile good-naturedly. "Maybe. I just think it's extraordinary."  


She could agree with that as well.   


"Those traits you gave the lions, the ones you said we matched, for humans those are so broad almost anyone could fit into any and all of them. I don't think you even scratched the surface of what they really are."  


Allura wanted to be offended but it was a little difficult when Hunk didn't sound accusatory nor was he wrong in what he'd said. She didn't really know the lions, she only really knew the paladins of old.   


"The blue lion is supposed to be open and flexible, able to adapt to any situation. I don't understand why she's being like this right now! She's closing herself off!" Allura let some of her anger and bitterness slip.   


Hunk's brows furrowed and he looked surprised at her. "Why do you think she's closed herself off? We don't know that for sure. Lance was just too tired to fly her," he reasoned.   


Allura drew her knees up and hugged them. "In all the years the old paladins flew the lions, no matter how tired or how hurt they were, none of the lions ever stopped listening to their paladins. If their paladins were unable to fly them, they would fly themselves to safety as long as their paladin was still inside. I don't know why but she's acting like she doesn't recognize Lance."  


Hunk dropped his fork. When it clattered on the floor he picked it up and put it neatly over his empty plate. "Alright. Tell me what you know about the blue lion."  


Allura was a little taken aback. "You want to know about the blue lion?" Hunk nodded. "Why?"  


"Because, if I tell Lance this, he'll just freak out and he won't be able to do anything. I know Lance though, so if this has something to do his connection to her, I might be able to help."  


"Oh." Allura unfurled herself. "But I don't know anything about the blue lion. I only knew her previous paladin. The paladins of old said that their personalities matched their respective lions."  


"Okay, so tell me about the first blue paladin," Hunk asked patiently.   


The memories that Allura would have to access were painful to think about now that everyone she once knew was gone. This wasn't something she had thought deeply about since she had woken up from forced sleep months ago. She looked at his face and his eyes were imploring.   


She sighed, "Fine, I'll tell you about him. ...Blaytz was the type of person who always wanted to help others. He was always busy cheering people up, he was so open. I think he could do that so easily because he knew exactly who he was. He was confident in himself and his solid presence made others blossom. He could become whatever the team needed in that moment because he always had the foundation of knowing himself to fall back on. He knew what he could do and what he could not. He was truly inspiring." Allura curled back in on herself again. "I'd never known anyone with more confidence."  


"Wow, he sounds like quite a guy," Hunk sounded almost as awed as she had been the first time she'd met Blaytz.   


"He was," she said softly.   


"I'd say Lance has those traits sometimes. He's not as stable. Sometimes he seems confident and sure of himself, but then something will happen and he calls those things into question. He doesn't get shaken up easily, but when something big happens, it throws him off to the point where he doesn't seem like himself," Hunk explained.   


"Knowing yourself completely, even in the vastness of the cosmos, surely is a rare trait to have," she contemplated in a forlorn manner.   


"Shiro has been missing. Lance looked up to him like a hero back on Earth even though he had never met him. Maybe Lance has just lost his foundation out here. We've all felt uprooted."  


"Maybe," Allura agreed.   


There was another long silence between them. It seemed like Hunk wanted Allura to say more, but she refused. She stayed silent for as long as it took.   


"You know, it would be nice if you started joining the rest of us for meals again," Hunk gave in. "There's a saying back on Earth, 'families that eat together, stay together.' If you and Keith joined us, I think it would make all of us feel better, including Lance."  


Allura thought on this for a while. "That is a nice saying," she admitted.   


"So you'll join us for dinner?" he asked hopefully.   


Allura felt something tense in her heart relax itself. "I shall consider it," she said with warmth and anxiety chasing each other in her chest.   


"That's great!" Hunk beamed at her.   


Allura's mouth opened in awe. Truly there was none like this one anywhere else in the universe.   


"Welp," Hunk stood and gathered his plate. "Pidge is probably already back to work with Slav. If I don't show up to help her soon, she might kill him!" he chuckled with affection. He turned to Blue and patted her leg. "Hey Blue! No matter how confused about himself Lance may get, he'll always love you. You remember that, okay?" he smiled up at her.   


How could this be? He knew exactly what to say to her without any hesitation. Was it because he had a relationship with his own lion? But the blue lion was different from the yellow lion. Was it because he was close to Lance? Hunk began to leave.   


"Wait," she stopped him. "Could I ask you something?"  


"Sure, anything," he said simply.   


"What exactly does the yellow lion want?"  


Hunk thought for a moment scratching his head. "It's not so simple to explain, but, to summarize, he wants to protect people even when it's scary."  


"Does that sound generic to you?" Allura turned his previous sentiment on him.   


He grinned, "Yes. I'll tell you more about him later if you want. In fact, I'll tell the whole dinner table if you come. I won't start without you though, so don't worry if you can't make it."  


Hunk left her alone, still sitting on the floor. The floor wasn't so bad once she got used to it. She turned to Blue.   


"Should I go to dinner with the others?" She felt nothing but she knew the answer anyway. 

_Knock, knock, knock._ "Keith?" Allura called gently. She waited in front of the door to his room playing with a lock of her long silver hair. When she didn't get an answer she tried again a little louder. _Knock, knock, knock._ "Keith!" Still no answer. Unsatisfied with this, she opened the door for herself.   


The vanishing door revealed only a person sprawled out on the middle of the floor. The room was bare of any personal effects aside from a red and white jacket folded neatly at the foot of the bed. Keith was in his T-shirt, jeans and boots, and of course his finger-less gloves grace his hands, but without his jacket on, he somehow looked younger. Perhaps his jacket made his shoulders look wider, or perhaps Allura had gotten used to seeing him in armor. Keith's forearm had been resting over his eyes but at her entrance he sat up on his elbows.   


"How did you get into my room?"  


"Why are you lying in the middle of the floor?"  


"You're in my room, you answer my question first," he insisted.   


Allura entered fully so that the door slid shut behind her. "I'm the Princess. I can get into any room I want." She fixed an imaginary wrinkle in the skirt of her dress.   


"You mean you have the security codes. Of course you do," he turned away from her on his side and used his arm as a pillow.   


"Now answer my question. You have a bed, do you ever use it?" She neared him until her body casted a shadow over his face.   


"I do when I'm sleeping."  


"Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?"  


"Aren't you supposed to be leaving me alone so that I can sleep?" Keith threw back at her.   


Allura thought about getting angry, she was certainly annoyed, but she came here with good intentions so she decided to sit on the floor for the second time today, except this time, next to Keith.   


"I knew you might be awake anyway so I came with an offer. Hu—"  


"I know what you're going to say and I don't want to hear it. Just get out!" Keith spoke over her.   


Allura puffed up and was so offended that she made several inarticulate sounds before she managed to say, "You do _not_ know what I was about to say!"  


"Yes I do! And I won't listen to it!" Keith covered both of his ears with his hands.   


Allura angrily tried to pulled the closest one off. "Hunk said that we were the only two who have been missing meals with the others! He wanted me to join them so I came to see if you'd come as well!" she screamed at him.   


Keith kept fighting to pull his arm back but her superior Altean strength won out and she held his arm in a leg lock between all the folds of her dress.   


Keith struggled to try and pry her legs apart using one of his legs and his free arm. "I see! So you'll get us all together and then you'll tells us we need to give up on Shiro!"  


"Wha?! I was _not_ going to say that!" Allura let go of his arm with her legs but still held on tightly to his wrist with her hand only to spring on him and pin his arms and legs to the floor, but not before he got her in the chin with his palm. "Ah!" she reacted and then geared up to yell directly in his face.   


"How dare you assume that of me!"  


Keith continued to make things hard for Allura by squirming and trying to hit her.   


"I only want us to eat together so that we can feel like a family again!"   


If they had been listening closely, they would have heard some stumbling before there was urgent banging on Keith's door.   


"Keith?! Are you okay?! What's going on?!" Lance sounded disoriented.   


"Great! You woke Lance up!" Keith whisper-yelled at his captor.   


"I did not! You started this!" Allura whispered back.   


"Keith! Are you okay?!" Lance sounded more alert this time.   


"I'm fine, Lance! You can go back to bed!" Keith called out to the door.   


Allura kept quiet above him and they both listened to see if he'd leave.   


"Uh, okay..." Lance said in a much quieter and unsure tone. It took a few seconds before they heard him walk away and the door next to Keith's open and close. Of course they would wake Lance up when they were screaming at each other! Keith and Lance shared a wall!   


Keith looked up at Allura. "Nice going," he remarked quietly.   


Allura sprung off of him and turned herself away but did not get up from by his side. "Like I said, it wasn't my fault," she continued in a hushed tone.   


Keith slowly sat up. "And you're still here why?"  


Allura thought about it and turned back to face him. "Because I had an offer and seeing as you are awake, what could eating with other people hurt?"  


Keith just stared at her with a harsh frown, knowing that wasn't the only reason anymore.   


"And..." she began. "Since you brought the topic up, we do need to start looking for someone to pilot the black lion."  


"I knew it!" Keith exploded again.   


Allura grabbed one of Keith's arms again to keep him from running away and put a finger to her mouth, something she had learned from Pidge. "Shhhh!" She didn't quite do it naturally.   


They both listened to see if they had bothered Lance again. When Allura was satisfied she relaxed a little.   


"This is not the same as giving up on Shiro."  


" _Yes it is,_ " Keith insisted. "That's exactly what it is. It's as close to the definition as you can get."  


"No, it isn't." Allura gripped his wrist harder.   


Keith gave a slight wince.   


"The truth is, Shiro isn't with us right now. We still need Voltron though. In the time we've been looking for Shiro and working hard to keep up with protecting the people we can, the Galra have been regrouping and assessing us. They know that the black lion hasn't been out of the Castle and they think the same of the red lion. If we don't do anything soon, they could organise a larger attack and without Voltron, we'll be helpless to stop them. We have yet to confirm what happened to Zarkon. They have more information about our state than we do of theirs. We need someone piloting each of the lions, even if it's just temporary," she explained in earnest.   


"How is replacing Shiro any different from giving up on him? You want someone to take his place? Well that's impossible!" he said angrily, just managing to keep his voice down.   


"Agh! Keith, are you listening to me at all? I said it would be temporary! What are we supposed to do, huh? Let countless people die while we're down a paladin and wait until we're in range of Shiro's suit? We can't do that! Shiro would never let us do that if he knew this!" she went back to whisper-shouting.   


"You don't know what Shiro would do! You barely knew him!"  


"I knew him a lot better than you think I did! Unlike you, he was open to actually talking to people! He asked my opinions on things and he listened to me! He respected me more than any of you do!"  


"Oh, really?" Keith's tone changed. "If you think you knew him, can you tell me any details about his past?"  


"Of course! He was captured by the Galra and held for a year before he escaped back to Earth!"  


"I mean personal details. Has he ever told you about his childhood? Or what happened to him on his first team survival test at the Garrison? Even just how he feels about something?"  


Allura looked to the floor and bit her lip trying to think of a time.   


"Shiro's really good at making people feel close to him because he's good at listening and giving advice, but he doesn't say things that reveal anything meaningful about himself to just anyone."  


Allura growled at Keith. "This conversation is pointless! It doesn't change the fact that we need someone in the black lion!"  


Keith's expression grew very dark and he banged his fist against the floor. "Allura, the reason I haven't been able to sleep is because I've been having nightmares about Shiro being tortured."  


Her anger dulled and her expression faded.   


"Every time I wake up I can't remember the details. I don't remember who was torturing him or where he was but it feels real, even after waking up!"  


"It might not be real," Allura tried to reassure him.   


"And if it is?!"  


She had no answer to give.   


"Shiro could be suffering all over again! What if the Galra have him again? Are we just going to leave him? We didn't leave you when you were captured!"  


"If he is with the Galra, then what better way to get him back then with Voltron?"  


There was a tentative knock on the door. "Uh, Keith? I heard you yelling. And I think I heard something else as well but I'm not exactly sure what it was. Listen... if you need something I..."  


Keith let Lance go on while he looked to Allura. "Let go of my arm," he demanded with a sense of authority that she could not figure out where it had come from.   


She let him go and saw a red ring where she'd been holding him. He stood up and pointed to a corner of the room.   


"Go stand over there."  


She glared slightly at him. "Why?"  


"Because if Lance sees you in here, he'll freak out and start to assume things neither of us want him to."  


She didn't know exactly what Keith was saying. It was difficult for her to infer things that were being implied when she didn't have the same cultural context to draw from. Nevertheless, she obeyed and stood against the wall with the door, in the furthest corner so that as long as Lance didn't enter the room, he was unlikely to spot her. She gathered her dress in bunches behind her so that it wouldn't drape out in front of her.   


Lance was still talking as Keith approached the door. "...it's not that you have to tell me anything. I just, you know, felt... if I could... Well," the door slid open. "Keith!" Lance sounded like he was startled.   


"I'm okay," Keith told him, softer than Allura had ever heard him speak to Lance.   


"Oh. I heard..."  


"Me yelling?"  


"Yeah. And..."  


"Me punching things?"  


"Oh, so that's what that was." Lance sounded really awkward now.   


"Why do you look more tired than the last time I saw you?" Keith asked.   


"Oh! Well... something did happen, but it's not that big of a deal, I just need sleep."  


"What happened?" Keith insisted.   


"I went on a mission."  


"After you went to get me? When?"  


Allura could hear Lance shrug. "Maybe four hours ago."  


Allura was surprised when Keith didn't say anything in response.   


"So, I guess you can't sleep."  


Keith shook his head.   


"I could get you a hot drink if you want?"  


"No, but thanks."  


There was a silence between the two of them.   


"Hey, uh... If you need someone to, to talk to, I mean, you'd usually talk to Shiro when something's wrong but since..." he trailed off then tried to start again. "I didn't mean to say that. I mean! The second part! I meant the first part. If you wanted to—"  


Keith decided to have mercy on him. "Maybe later," he said with sincerity.   


Lance seemed to take him as sincere as well. "Okay. Later."  


Keith nodded again.   


"Okay," Lance still sounded hesitant to leave but Allura heard him pivot on his foot and slowly walk to his room. What was going on between the two boys was beyond Allura at this point. Maybe if she could see their faces, but still she doubted she'd understand. It must have been a human thing.   


Keith didn't step back from the door until after Lance's door had closed. When he stepped back, he looked directly at her with something usual on his face. She couldn't make sense of it.   


"Okay," he said.   


When Allura only gave him a confused look he explained further.   


"We'll look for someone to pilot the black lion."  


Allura felt relief wash through her. She hadn't realized how tense her shoulders had been. She let her dress splay back out around her feet and began to reapproach Keith.   


"Don't think for a second that this will be easy," Keith warned.   


Seriousness pulled her features back in. "I know you will not submit to just any authority. Neither will I. I promise I will never let anyone undeserving of our respect near the black lion," she swore.   


Keith examined her for several moments before conceding. "Good."  


Allura eyed the door. "Well. The others must have started dinner a while ago now."  


"Did you want to join them?"  


"Not in the middle of things. But, if you give me a moment to change, I would be glad to meet you on the training deck."  


Keith looked perplexed. "I thought training more was my solution to everything."  


"Yes, well, I thought we could work on hand-to-hand. You could stand to learn how to grapple an opponent with greater strength than your own."  


The expected rise from Keith never came. He simply said, "Sure." Allura was positive that if Lance had said the same thing to him, it would have drawn out his competitive side. Why did she get such a different reaction?   


All the same, she left in a hurry to change into her battle gear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was very tempted to call this chapter "Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Keith's Door" but this chapter was so serious the whole way through. I promise I do have a sense of humor but I think I need to add angst to the tags.


	4. Wolf Cub

"Alright," Allura looked around the table now that their whole crew (minus Slav, but who knows where he could be) were finally in the same room together. Considering this hadn't happened in a few weeks, it was a big deal. "Now that we're all finally together we can talk about finding a pilot for the black lion."  


Everyone was either fidgeting or avoiding looking at each other. Lance, however, kept glancing at Keith who was staring deadeyed at the table. He really didn't look good. His hair looked lifeless and dull, his skin looked too dry and tired, and his eyes had dark circles around them.   


"Does anyone have any ideas?" Allura tried.   


They all sat contemplating in one way or another.   


"I know it's difficult to compare anyone with Shiro, so don't try to think of someone exactly like him. Just think of the qualities Shiro possesses that are most important to you and maybe we'll have a candidate," Allura attempted to give the others a sense of what she would be looking for. Since she apparently didn't know Shiro as well as she thought she had, she herself couldn't give very many specifics. It's not like Zarkon's personality really helped with this.   


After several minutes of thinking and of Allura watching everyone to make sure they were actually thinking instead of just avoiding the situation, Pidge raised her hand nervously.   


Everyone but Keith looked to her. "There was the military leader on Durra that I met. He had some Shiro-like qualities. ...I think," she clarified.   


"Who was he exactly?" Allura asked.   


"I think he was the Captain of their Armed Forces. He wasn't the planet's leader, I didn't meet whoever that was. I think his name was Captain Worsh. He was the one who answered my hail and agreed to let me help them. He also was the one I gave the tactical information to."  


"I see. What was he like?"  


"Um... very yellow?"   


Everyone but Lance gave a confused expression.   


"What? It's the first thing you notice when you see a Durran! They're bright yellow and they look sort of like jello, but not. They have a defined shape and they're opaque but they've got that shininess that jello has and they look really squishy."  


"Like silly putty?" Lance asked.   


"Sort of, but a brighter, shinier yellow."  


"Cool!"  


"Is this really relevant?" Allura interrupted.   


"It could be relevant if it's really distracting. How will we concentrate during meetings if our temp-leader's shiny yellowness is too blindingly magnificent?" Lance said like he was making a solid point.  


Pidge, Hunk and even Coran all laughed at that. Lance grinned from ear to ear but when he looked back at Keith it wavered.   


"Blindingly magnificent?" Hunk kept laughing. "Hey Pidge, if he's like jello, imagine if he could absorb punches, or if he could get shot straight through and just _shoop_!" Hunk demonstrated by making a hole with his hand and then making the hole disappear.   


"That would be awesome!" she giggled.   


"The only down side I see is that yellow is kinda already my thing."  


"Eh-em!" Allura cleared her throat and after seeing her completely unamused look, they all shut up promptly. "What is the man actually like?" she asked tersely.   


Pidge let herself be serious again. "Once I got there with the information to help them fight, he insisted on leading their troops into battle personally, apparently against their protocols and the wishes of the other officers at their intel base. He covered me when I saved Lance from a tractor beam and he helped me destroy the Galra battleship."  


Allura may have looked quite impressed.   


"I'd say those are some good base qualifications," Coran encouraged.   


"Alright," Allura conceded. "He can be a possibility. Durra is about two quintents away. When we get there, if Captain Worsh is interested, Keith and I will conduct an interview."  


"If you open a portal we could be there today," Pidge pointed out.   


"Yes, but..." Allura glanced at Keith but then tried to pretend like she hadn't. "Flying there at a normal pace should hopefully gives us some more time to rest."  


"Right," Pidge said, trying not to let her concern be noticed.   


"Are there any other ideas for candidates?" Allura continued.   


After looking to see if anyone else would say something, Hunk spoke up. "Princess," he got her attention. "This might not be my place to say anything, but is there any reason you couldn't pilot the black lion?"  


Allura's mouth dropped open at the suggestion.   


"Hear me out! The rest of us already know you and trust you. We already share a bond and you've been leading us outside of Voltron since this whole thing started for us. I'm just saying that it would probably be a lot easier to transition to following you than it would be to follow a stranger no matter how good they sound on paper."  


"I..." Allura looked down at her hands resting on the table. It's not that she didn't want to, but she had her doubts about her true compatibility with the black lion. The other thing was, she and Voltron as a whole, or maybe it was the universe or the prophets or something, were not on good terms with each other right now. She wanted this, but if she hadn't been chosen before Shiro, why would she be chosen now?   


"Princess," Coran got her to look at him. "You've been raised to lead since the quintent you were born. Perhaps you leading this team is not meant to be, but if you never try, you certainly never will. Sometimes answering the call is all we can do."  


Allura held Coran's eyes for several seconds before deciding.   


"I will ask the black lion if he will have me, but if the answer is no, we should all continue looking for someone else." Allura stood signalling that their short meeting was adjourned.   


Before any of the others moved, Hunk asked, "Do you want us to come with you?"  


She paused. "I'm not... sure."  


"We'd be right behind you," Hunk offered.   


Allura thought and, realizing she was scared, she nodded minutely.   


Everyone but Keith stood and they followed Allura out the door with the exception of Lance who lingered by the table.   


"Are you coming?" he asked.   


Keith shook his head and then folded his arms over the table and rested his face on them.   


Lance frowned deeply. "You really don't look good. You look more tired than I did the last time we saw each other."  


Keith said nothing and gave no sign at all that he had heard Lance.   


"Hey! Keith!" Lance called to him like an alarm clock. When he still got no response he walked around the table and pulled out the chair next to him. He grabbed Keith's head and rolled it so that he could see his face. Keith only squinted at him. "Not in peak condition, huh?"  


Keith only blinked to show Lance that he wouldn't let him patronize him.   


"Okay, okay. Can't sleep?" he asked.   


Keith shook his head again.   


"Why not?"  


Keith took a while to answer. "Nightmares."  


"Oh." It made sense that even Keith would have nightmares sometimes. And with everything they've been through recently, Lance shouldn't be surprised but he still wouldn't have imagined this being the problem. Not in a million years. Keith was too Keith for nightmares. At least, that was Lance's perception. "What about?" he was intimately curious.   


Keith looked like he wanted to hide his face again, or maybe the bright Castle lights were bothering his eyes, Lance couldn't tell which.   


"About Shiro."  


"Oh." Lance was very eloquent today. But now things made a lot more sense to him. If Keith couldn't sleep because of Shiro then Keith wouldn't rest until he scoured every corner and dark hidden spot in the universe looking for him. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked tentatively.   


Keith let out a huff of air. "You know, you being this nice to me only reminds me of why things are so different now."  


"Don't point it out, it's already difficult enough with my knowing I'm being nice to you. But even I can't kick a wolf cub when he's down, so I won't stop until you start smiling again. Or, wait. Did you ever smile before this? I honestly can't remember!"  


The corner of Keith's mouth quirked up ever so slightly, but it was enough for Lance to grow a full-blown smile. Still, Lance was smart enough not to get ahead of himself, so he didn't try pushing Keith any further.   


"Maybe you should try sleeping with someone else around. I sometimes get nightmares when I feel like I'm alone. Probably a consequence of sharing a room growing up, but if it helps me, it could help you."  


"I don't think that's a good idea. If I wake up from a nightmare and see someone there, I might kill them."  


"I know how to defend myself."  


"I sleep with my Marmora blade."  


"So I can sleep in my armor."  


Keith sat himself up. "You're volunteering? Why?"  


Lance had to look away. He didn't know entirely why, he knew half the reason but there was still this other half that he didn't have access to. "It would benefit me as well. If I sleep in the same room as someone else, I'm less likely to have nightmares too," he explained.   


Keith was silent for so long that Lance decided to look back at him to see what he was doing. He wasn't staring at Lance like Lance had feared, he was staring off into space clearly deep in thought.   


"Keith?"  


Keith looked over at his name.   


"You don't have to, I was just trying to think of ways to help."  


Keith held his gaze in an intense way that made Lance nervous. "You'll regret it if I keep waking you up."  


The beating of Lance's heart was finally able to slow back down. "I'm fully rested right now and you're exhausted, so you can nap while I find something to entertain myself."  


"Like what?"   


That was it! Lance had figured out something brilliant! A truly exhausted Keith, once you got him past the angry at everything phase, was much more compliant than regular Keith. Lance would have to remember this, he considered it his own top secret Keith knowledge.   


"I don't know, maybe I could draw. I haven't drawn something in years, it could be fun!"  


Keith blinked tiredly and then let out a yawn.   


"Come on, buddy," Lance stood and held out his hand for Keith. "We can go to your room if you want."  


Keith nodded and then placed his wrist in Lance's hand. Lance was a little confused at first until Keith tried to get up and Lance had to grab Keith under the armpit to get him standing. No wonder he hadn't moved when the others were leaving, Keith was running on fumes.   


"You know, as much as carrying you to bed would let me tease you for the rest of your life, you're really heavy when you're practically dead weight," Lance struggled trying to hold him up.   


"I can walk," Keith tried to shove him away but only caused himself to nearly fall in the other direction. Lance caught him and with exertion, pulled one of Keith's arms over his shoulders and braced him with a hand on his far side.   


"How long has it been since you last slept?" Lance asked between deep breaths. Keith was barely putting any effort into helping Lance keep him standing.   


"Since Hunk made that weird cake-thing," he mumbled.   


Lance did some quick counting in his head. "That was thirteen days ago!"  


Yelling in his ear seemed to jolt Keith back to him. He stood up straighter and was almost holding himself up on his own. He glared at Lance but then looked to think about something.   


"I thought that was six days ago."  


Lance took that in for all of about two seconds. "Alright! Sleepy time, let's go, let's go!" He started half dragging Keith until Keith registered Lance's marching orders and lifted up a foot about every other step.   


"From now on you will sleep when I tell you to and you will stay asleep until I give you permission to wake up! Am I understood?" Lance ordered.   


Keith nodded and Lance was sure Keith no longer knew what was going on.  


_BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!_ The blaring alarm and the blinding red flashing broke the peace of the tranquil Castle.   


"Paladins! Get to your lions!" The Castle shook suddenly throwing everyone on board off their feet as something impacted the haul. "I've just raised the particle barrier! I'll need each of you ready to provide cover fire once I let you all out!" Allura's voice could be heard echoing in every hall.   


Allura waited for the others to take action as she took the helm of the ship and began searching for something to inspire a plan.   


"I'm ready!" Pidge called into the mic in her helmet.   


"Is anyone else in their lion yet?" Allura asked their general comm. She could look for cover to pilot the Castleship to so that she could let the team out safely. Coran came sprinting through the doors to reach his station and began firing on as many Galran ships as he could manage.   


"I'm almost to mine! I was with Pidge in Green's hanger!" Hunk answered as he hiked the ramp into Yellow. "I'm ready!" he called after flinging himself into his seat.   


"Keith, Lance! I'm sorry Keith, I know you're tired but there are a lot of Galra out there! I'll need your help! Are you near?" Allura spoke quickly.   


Allura dodged the best she could as a battleship suddenly appeared from somewhere far out in space.   


"Princess! I'm not sure we'll be able to handle this without Voltron! We should aim to retreat!" Coran advised as he focused the Castle's fire on the battleship.   


"With the four of them working together we can do this! We need to make a stand and win so that the Galra don't know about our weakened state!" She spotted an opportunity, they were close to a planet in the system they had been passing through.   


"Keith? Lance?" Allura tried for them again.   


"Hunk, do you know where Lance was?" Pidge asked.   


"I haven't seen him since yesterday!"  


Allura quickly checked one of her panels. "The red and blue lions are inactive, you'll need to start without them! I'm taking us around a moon, when I say so, I'll need you both to exit your hangers! Do it as quickly as possible so that I can reinitialise the particle barrier!"  


"Got it!" Pidge and Hunk confirmed together.   


Allura increased her speed to outrun the swarming ships and adjusted her flight vector, ready to slingshot around the nearest gravitational well.   


"We're not pulling far enough ahead!" Coran warned.   


"I'll get us the space!" Allura aimed the Castle even closer to the moon, making the whole ship rattle as the gravity pulled them along faster. Allura and Coran held onto their stations to keep themselves from going flying.   


Squinting at the display in front of her, she waited until the pursuing ships were just out of sight over the moons horizon. Still holding on tight to her console, she reached to put in the sequence to let down the barrier.   


"Now!" she yelled as she pushed the final button. 

  


"Shiro! We need to run now!" Keith grabbed Lance's arm again and pulled him toward his side preventing Lance from picking up his helmet _again_.   


Lance went back to trying to snap Keith out of whatever was happening to him. "Keith, I'm not Shiro, I'm Lance! Remember Lance?" he got in front of Keith's face and tried to get him to look at his face. Keith's eyes weren't focused on anything in the room, he was either sleep-fighting or hallucinating. Not good. "I'm your rival. I shoot things, you cut things, remember?"  


Keith acted like he spotted something over Lance's shoulder, something that made him terrified.   


"Shiro! Get down!" Keith screamed as he pushed Lance to the floor and covered him with his own body.   


"Keith! There's no one here but us!" Lance yelled from underneath him. "We have to defend the Castle! We need to get to our lions!"  


Keith steadily lifted himself until he was hovering over Lance and he looked around the room as if an enemy would appear. He seemed to think the coast was clear as he got up in a crouch and helped Lance into the same position, his eyes still scanning around the room. He had Lance's hand and he wasn't letting go of it.   


"Keith, do you know where we are?" Lance asked cautiously.   


Keith crept to the door, pulling Lance with him. The door slid open at their approach and Keith looked both ways.   


"Come on," Keith stood with a stance ready to spring into action. "We're getting out of here."  


Lance pulled Keith back down toward him and held both sides of his face to force Keith to really look at him. "Keith. I'm not Shiro. You're in the Castle of Lions, no one's on the ship, we're all safe right now," he said with a set brow. A complete lie, but the battle going on outside the Castle was not the one Keith was facing right now.   


Keith took Lance's hands and held them to his cheeks. He was looking right into Lance's eyes and he had an expression that Lance could only recognize as love.   


"Don't worry, I'm going to save you," he said with a sad earnestness that made it a promise.   


Lance's lips parted as he took in Keith's expression. He realized this expression wasn't meant for him and he retracted his hands from Keith's face with a sense of guilt.   


"Keith," he made a pleading sound, begging Keith to stop giving him that look.   


He didn't have to. The ship suddenly threw them both to the side and didn't stop pulling. Lance caught the door frame and held on to keep himself from hitting the wall. Keith was lucky enough to be in the door frame so he braced himself with his back against the side they were being pulled to and his leg on the other. Lance's fingers were stuck between Keith's back and the frame and it was getting painful. Keith looked over his shoulder to see where he had gone and then looked alarmed as Lance gritted his teeth and shut his eyes at the strain. Taking no more of this, Keith grabbed one of Lance's arms and used all his strength to pull Lance up until their arms were locked between their chests. They clung to each other as the ship continued to try and separate them for what felt like way too long.   


When the ship finally let go, their arms were tired and Lance had trouble releasing Keith from his grip. Keith, however, inspected Lance's fingers immediately. All but his thumbs were still red from being squashed.   


"We have to figure out what happened. Come on, Keith, our friends need us," Lance ignored his fingers and tried to get Keith to stand.   


Keith looked behind Lance and his eyes widened. "NO!" he cried as he pulled Lance to the side and shielded him with his whole body. His body shook twice and he screamed in pain.   


"Did you just hallucinate being shot?!" Lance turned livid. Why was Keith having to go through something like this?! This wasn't fair at all!   


Keith growled like an angry wolf and turned, pulling out his Marmora blade. It grew until and resembled a sword, gleaming black and purple.   


"Keith!"   


He started swinging the blade at the imaginary enemies surrounding him.   


"Keith!" Lance called again.   


"Stay back! You're hurt!" Keith shouted as he cut a long, jagged slice in the hallway wall.   


Lance needed this to stop now. He was done with this.   


Letting out a battle cry in his frustration, he rushed Keith and drove him into the wall. He kept his knee between Keith's legs and his shoulder between Keith's shoulder blades to kept him in place while he pinned Keith's dominant arm to the wall. As Keith struggled trying to shove Lance off, Lance hit Keith's hand, crushing it against the wall until he dropped the sword. There was a moment where Lance thought he could handle things from here but Keith got just enough leverage to push them both off the wall so that they fell to the floor. Keith had fallen on top of Lance, Lance knew he was in danger. As Keith flipped around Lance reached for the sword on instinct. It shrunk back into a knife as soon as he grasped it and when Keith saw it in his hand, his fury turned on Lance. Keith knocked Lance's arm away when he raised it to defend himself and pinned Lance's head to the floor with a hand over his face. Keith grabbed the knife, blade side digging into his hand and recoiled when he bled.   


"Ah!" Keith cradled his wound, sitting up over Lance's legs.   


Noticing the change, Lance pulled Keith's hand to look at the bleeding. He had one cut across his four fingers and one deep in his palm having gone straight through his glove.   


"Lance? Where's..." Keith looked around and then remembered this reality.   


"Keith, we've gotta go. The Castle's under attack and the others are already out there," Lance spoke with finality that expressed his anger. He wasn't angry at Keith, but he couldn't control the way he spoke to him right now. "If I go now, will you be able to get into your armor and make it to Red?" he asked.   


Keith took his hand back from Lance and put pressure on the bleeding by squeezing it. "I can," Keith responded in kind with a short, bitter sound, not understanding Lance's hostility.   


Lance could tell he was going to resent himself for this later. "This is yours," he handed the knife over. He stood, entered Keith's room to gather his helmet and ran for the blue lion's hanger, seething as he passed Keith by. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally going to be much longer but when I noticed how long it already was, I broke it into two parts. I think this is my favorite chapter I've written so far, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. If all goes well, the next chapter should be out later this week. I hope you've enjoyed!


	5. The Black Lion

"I'm on my way," Lance said over the comm as he ran through corridor after corridor to get to Blue.   


"Lance!" Allura yelled, in part relief, part criticism. "What happened? Where have you been?"  


"Lance! Can you get out here quickly? We need back up!" Hunk sounded urgent.   


"Ah!" Pidge screamed.   


"Pidge?!" Lance sped up his run.   


"It's alright, they didn't get me but it was close!"  


"Lance, did something happen? Do you know where Keith is?" Allura asked again.   


There was a lot of misplaced anger in Lance's heart about Keith, so he really didn't want to talk about it. Not that Keith would want him sharing anyway.   


"I was just with him. There was a problem but we handled it. He should be on his way soon," he replied in a clipped tone.   


"Just get here as fast as you can! Ah! Coran, there's another battleship now!" Pidge yelled. He could hear over her mic the sound of something impacting the green lion.   


"I see it! I would highly recommend retreat now, Princess!"   


"I can't make a portal if we can't get enough distance between us and them! We need to push them back!"   


Lance slowed down a bit. "Do you still want me out there if we're retreating?"  


"Yes!" both Pidge and Hunk urged.   


"We need you and Keith to help drive the Galra back!" Allura answered.   


Speeding back up, Lance rounded the last corner to Blue's hanger. He hadn't seen her since he'd passed out in her cockpit and had to be towed home by Pidge and Hunk. Understandably, he hesitated a moment before shaking off his doubts and climbing into her. 

Keith got up slowly with his knife in one hand and his other hand clenched as blood dripped down to the floor. He felt very unsteady, though his feet were standing firm below him. He felt in a daze. He walked back to his room and removed his outer garments before sliding on each piece of his armor. He couldn't tell if what he was experiencing right now was real. He moved slower than he should have and with less purpose.   


Lance had told him there was a battle outside the Castle, that he needed to help the others, but it was difficult to find the urgency when everything was surreal. He dragged his feet along as he walked on autopilot toward the red lion, not hearing any of what was going on over their comm system.   


Halfway down the hall, he stumbled against the wall as his mind was taken elsewhere.   


_Shiro was afraid. In fact, he was terrified. All around him were aliens in robes and masks, hiding what they looked like from him, keeping him in the dark. None of them would say anything to him or even to each other._   


_"Hey!" he shouted as one of them came near him with an unrecognizable tool. "Stay back! Don't touch me!"_   


_The alien ignored him as he struggled with all his might against the restraints holding him to a table made of unknown material. Whatever it was, no matter how long he was forced to lie on it, it would never get warm._   


_"Stop it!"_   


_He was forced to open his mouth as the alien inserted the tool and quickly used it to pull out one of his back molars. He screamed in agony but could do nothing else as the robed figure turned and took his tooth away. His eyes prickled with tears as his jaw throbbed and blood kept gushing down the back of his throat._   


_After a moment where Shiro just tried to focus on breathing so that he wouldn't cry in front of his tormentors, another alien turned to him and started waving its hands above him._   


_"What are you doing?" Shiro choked out._   


_But it didn't answer him. Instead, a glowing purple circle with an intricate design appeared above his face. Shiro's eyes widened as he couldn't understand what was happening. It looked like Earth's fictitious depictions of magic._   


_"Stop it!" he shouted again. But then he started to feel a change in his mouth. From the bone of his jaw sprouted a new tooth, growing rapidly until it pushed through the walls of the empty gum socket to fill the place of the one he'd just lost. The unnaturalness of this was made apparent to him when it hurt far worse than pulling out the other tooth had. His voice echoed out of the room and down the connecting hall as he was left alone to suffer without witness._   


_Now by himself, he couldn't help but let a tear or two streak down the side of his face. He continued to struggle in vain against his bindings, but eventually, he went lax._   


_He looked up at the ceiling above him and whispered to the sky, "Please, get me out of here."_  


Keith suddenly jolted back to himself only to find that he was on his hands and knees shaking from head to toe. He was still in the same hallway he had never made it out of before.   


Shiro still needed his help. Keith jumped to his feet and started sprinting for Red. He wasn't going to let Shiro be tortured, he wasn't going to let the druids keep him. 

When Blue's lights failed to turn on at Lance's entrance and her controls didn't respond to his touch, he made sure his mic was muted for the others.   


"Blue? I'm here girl." He didn't even feel her presence stir.   


No, no, no, no, no! This was not happening now! Especially not right now!   


"Blue, what's wrong? We need to get out there and help the others."  


Still, he felt nothing.   


"Blue, come on!" he yelled. "I— I can't—" Lance sighed to try and calm himself. "Don't do this to me. Please," he begged in a fragile voice. "I already don't know what I'm doing anymore. I need you," he admitted honestly.   


Lance waited, hoping she'd respond to him. Not a thing.   


"Aghh!" Lance banged his fists against the control panel in front of him out of a hatred for his situation, a hatred for their leader being gone, a hatred for his inability to do _anything_!  


He suddenly remembered that the panel in front of him was a part of Blue and that he had just hit her. He quickly smoothed over her panel with gentle hands.   


"I'm sorry," he apologized. He didn't hate her, he could never. But he couldn't help being upset with her for this rejection. He didn't understand why this was happening.   


More yelling was going on over the comms again and Lance decided then that despite everything, he wouldn't leave his friends alone in the fight. If he could do nothing else, he could at least be there.   


He stood, left Blue and headed straight for the only other way he knew he could help. 

Keith made it to Red's hanger but as soon as he looked up at her, he collapsed on the floor.   


_Shiro was pulled roughly to the side by his handler as he exited the arena. Above them could be heard thousands of Galra chanting, "Cham-pi-on, cham-pi-on, cham-pi-on!"_   


_His handler cuffed him. "We're going to see a special guest that came to the arena today," he purred in excitement._   


_Shiro wanted to spit in the guy's face but he restrained himself and allowed himself to be dragged along. He was already bloodied and tired, he really didn't need to be beaten while he wasn't allowed to fight back._   


_"Behave when we get there. You might be killed otherwise," he was told by the snake he was charged to._   


_Death? Shiro had considered it. It was as they said; it would be easier. But death he was still more afraid of than life. Death was unknown, death was letting them win, death would make all his struggle and defiance in vain. But life! From life there was hope, with life he could endure, with life there was the chance for escape._   


_And oh how he missed many things he had taken for granted. The small comforts of not being in pain, having a bed and a blanket, being able to see the sun. He missed Earth, but he missed the people there more than the place itself._   


_So he was determined not to die before getting out of here. It wouldn't matter what they did to him, he would live and he would leave to prove to these invaders that humankind is not to be messed with._   


_"In here!" his handler threw him into a space lift that would take them to the top seats that were sectioned off for important guests. Special indeed. Those seats were apparently extremely hard to get even if you had connections._   


_The doors opened and Shiro saw the space for the first time. There was a large chair, carved out of some type of stone, in the middle with the best view over the balcony. A smaller chair, carved from the same stone, was on either side of the center throne. As the handler brought him around to the side of the center chair, he could see a low, ornate table laden with alien fruit and drink._   


_He was kicked to the ground and harshly told to bow in respect._   


_"My Emperor," his handler kneeled and bowed deeply._   


_Shiro looked up to make sure. It was him. He hadn't seen him since he was first captured and brought before him._   


_The Emperor's only acknowledgement of them was to turn his head and look down upon them._   


_"Did you enjoy the show, my Liege?"_   


_"It amused me," was the reply._   


_"If it pleased you, perhaps you would like to meet the Champion," he presented Shiro with a grand movement of his arm._   


_"He has done well," the Emperor acknowledged._   


_"He is by far our greatest drawer of crowds," he said conversationally but still with the greatest respect. "As I'm sure you remember, fifty percent of our humble arena's profits go to fund your great conquest. Yet, the druids take our Champion away and preform experiments that more often than not, lead to him not being fit to fight. Despite being our fan-favorite, he is in the least amount of fights out of our regular performers. He's always—"_   


_"State what you want," the Emperor commanded._   


_His handler flinched and Shiro felt some mild gratification._   


_"My apologies, my Lord. I would like for the druids to leave the Champion here with me. Our profits would increase if he fights more often," he bowed his head again as if his kneel was not enough._   


_Zarkon contemplated his request. "Haggar!" he shouted._   


_Suddenly a witch appeared by his side from out of no where. More magic, Shiro realized._   


_"Yes, Sire," the witch knelt and bowed as well._   


_"Have your druids been keeping this creature from here?" he didn't even gesture; he expected to be understood._   


_Haggar looked over her shoulder and then back at the Emperor. "Yes, my Lord. His species is weak but intriguing."_   


_"I hear your druids make him unable to fight."_   


_The witch stood and approached his arm at that. "If you wish for him to fight, we can enhance what he already has," she spoke in a twisted type of seduction, the type that was slimy and heathenesse._   


_Zarkon smiled, like the temptation to torture Shiro further was seduction enough for him._   


_"Modify him."_  


Keith woke back up still on the floor, more confused than before. That wasn't right. Surely Zarkon was at least unwell after their battle. And Shiro's arm, it was flesh and blood not metal and magic. He didn't understand. Was he making all of this up? It still felt real.   


Deciding that he'd figure it out as he went, he jogged a little less confidently up the ramp into Red. When he sat in the pilot's seat it happened again.   


_"Zarkon! This isn't the answer! Let me help you and we'll figure this out together!" a voice came over the comm._   


_"I don't need your help, I've just figured out that I don't need you at all," Zarkon replied as he piloted the black lion in pursuit of the green lion._   


_"That's not true! We're a team! We all need each other and I can help you if you just give me a chance! All I need is to know what happened to Daibazaal." The voice sounded like a woman. The black lion knew who this was, they had had a connection before. But now that his paladin had closed him off from the rest of the lions, he couldn't remember her name. His consciousness felt fuzzy and he couldn't see as well._   


_"All you ever want to do is analyze our problems, but I've already solved this one! All of you have been preventing me from reaching my full potential as a leader. You know everyone would benefit if they followed me."_   


_"That's not true and you didn't used to believe that! You knew that people need autonomy!"_   


_"I know what people need, and I know what I need." Black's targeting scanner was getting close to locking on. "And what I need is to be free from you." Black had locked on to Green._   


No! _The black lion's emotional response made his paladin hesitate. He loved his paladin, he knew he couldn't disobey him, so he pleaded for Green and her paladin. They were supposed to take care of their pride, they were supposed to trust them and lead them with honor. It wasn't that long ago that things were as they should be. Black's heart was breaking at the hatred in his paladin's heart. But still, he could not resist him._  


_Zarkon growled at Black and pulled the trigger. The fight was over with a single shot. The lions were never meant to fight each other, and the other lions could not fight their leader. No matter what they wanted, they always had to submit to him._   


_The green lion hurdled down through the atmosphere of a planet, preparing to crash land. Black let out a roar of anguish as he was forced to pursue her decent. He loved his paladin and he hoped that would be enough to stop him._   


_The green lion fell in a jungle, leveling a dense line of foliage. As Black and his paladin neared, they could see the green paladin climbing out and running for the cover of the jungle. Zarkon gave Black an order but Black pleaded with him again. He revealed all that he was feeling to his paladin, his intense love and loyalty to him, his affection for Green and her paladin, his desire to protect them, not to harm them and his longing to feel his paladin's affection for him again._   


_Zarkon squeezed at his controls too tightly. "You will submit to me," he ordered in a low and dangerous tone._   


_He could not resist. Black teleported Zarkon to where the green paladin was running. He watched as Zarkon shot at her with his bayard. She dodged shot after shot as he pursued her. He watched as Zarkon had had enough and his bayard changed into a long whip that caught the green paladin around the ankle. He watched as she begged for her life, begged that he would let her help. She told him she knew this wasn't who he was, she told him she believed he could fight what was happening to him. But once he was close enough, his whip changed into a sword and Black watched him execute her with one swift cut._   


_How would Green ever forgive him?_  


Keith awoke with his hands gripped tightly on Red's controls. His hands recoiled thinking that it felt too similar to what he'd just witnessed. He sat in her cockpit just trying to take that in. Processing anything right now was difficult at best, but that was surely impossible.   


He needed answers and when he looked around Red's cockpit, he knew he wouldn't get answers from her. For some reason, she wasn't talking to him. So he went to get answers, directly from the source. 

"Allura, get ready to open the shuttle bay door," Lance ordered as he turned on the engine of the less familiar vehicle.   


"What? Why? What's going on?" she asked hurriedly.   


"Blue wasn't responding to me so I'm taking a shuttle out."  


"What?" Allura sounded worried. "Being out there in a shuttle is too dangerous!" she tried to reason.   


"You said that you'd need both me and Keith so that we could escape. Has that changed?" he asked.   


"Well, no but—"  


"Then whether I'm in a lion or a shuttle, it's better than not being out there at all."  


Allura made a sound like she still wanted to argue but then Lance heard speaking from further away.   


"You have to trust your team, not in all things but when their hearts are in the right place," he barely made out. That comment was probably only meant for Allura but Lance was glad he had heard it. It was nice to know that Coran trusted him even when he was in a really bad mood.   


"Fine," Allura conceded. "Hunk, Pidge, can you help me get the Galra all facing one side of the Castle? I'll lift the particle barrier from all sides but one to let Lance out."  


"We can try," Pidge sounded unsure if this would work.   


"Hey Lance, are you sure about this, buddy?" Hunk went out of his way to ask him even with the chaos outside. If this were a normal day full of normal problems, Hunk would have melted Lance's heart.   


"I'm sure," he said resolutely.   


"Then we'll get it done," Hunk assured him.   


"Keith?" they all heard Allura ask.   


There was silence while they all focused on their own tasks.   


Allura huffed. "Still no Keith." Lance could tell she was really tense. "Have you released your shuttle's tether?"  


"Tether?"  


"You can release the magnetic tether by pressing the bottom right button on your far right panel," she instructed.   


Lance did as he was told. "I'm ready."  


"I'll open the bay door. Wait until I tell you to exit."  


The door lifted as Lance kept his engine spooled. Once he saw what was going on outside, he understood why they were trying to retreat. In his view alone, there were at least thirty fighter ships that all went after the yellow lion as Hunk flew by shooting at the ones he could. He attracted all but the huge battleship that paid him no mind and kept recharging its ion canon and firing it at the Castle. He saw it taking hits from the Castle, no doubt courtesy of Coran.   


The Castleship suddenly turned sharply as if facing the battleship from the front and the space revealed to Lance only had stars. The particle barrier vanished from his view and he knew it was time.   


"Now Lance!" Allura called.   


He was already on it, his shuttle craft blasting out the door and clearing the ship's perimeter at top speed.   


"Ah!"  


"Princess?!" Pidge called.   


"It's alright! We took damage but the particle barrier is back up, Lance got clear!"  


"Thank quiznak!" Hunk said at the same time that Pidge sighed in relief. "Lance, can you come to the port side of the Castle? Yellow and I can cover you while we try to push them back."  


"I'm coming."   


As Lance circled the underside of the Castle, he saw what they were really facing. It was like seeing an entire invasion force. There were enough Galra fighters to conquer a small planet all chasing and circling, overwhelming Hunk and Pidge. They ignored the Castle and it's particle barrier and focused solely on the lions, pursuing them, cutting off their every exit and escape route, keeping the pressure on and never letting them catch a break. Pidge and Hunk were destroying ships nearly every few seconds but their shear numbers were too much. As Lance came far enough out from under the Castle he saw above him what was keeping Coran and Allura so busy. There were three, no, four battleships all focused on the Castle. Where the Altean ship moved, they followed.   


"Four is an unlucky number," Lance mumbled to himself.   


Several of the fighters spotted him and broke off from the others to fire at him. He began performing evasive maneuvers knowing that this ship wasn't as well armored as the lions. He couldn't afford to just take hits to get an extra shot in. His ship did acrobatics through space, turning and looping all in the general direction of the yellow lion so that he could get to relative safety. Keith may be the best pilot among them, but Lance was proving right now that he had learned a lot since they had left Earth. He fired at the ones in front of him while dodging the ones behind him but he quickly realized there was a big difference in the fire power of this ship compared to what he was used to. He was hitting them ten to fifteen times before they were destroyed, but Lance wasn't just better at piloting. Watching carefully for exactly where he hit that caused the most damage, he started taking them down with fewer and fewer shots. Whether on the ground with a gun or flying at mach speeds in an unfamiliar spacecraft, he was still a sniper.   


He felt a jolt and his ship started spiraling as warnings written in Altean flashed up on his screen. It looked like the end of his right wing had been clipped.   


"Hunk, I could really use your help right about now!" Lance said as he tried to right his ship.   


"I can come to you but I'll be bringing more ships with me," Hunk warned.   


"Just get over here and we'll fight back to back!" Lance steadied his shuttle just in time to dodge a Galra fighter who seemed intent on crashing straight into him to take him out.   


"Where's Pidge?" Lance asked.   


"I'm above the Castle! We've been trying to thin their numbers because there's no way we can get all of them away from the Castle, but they seem endless! There was only one battleship when we got out here!"  


When Hunk and Lance reached each other they needed no words to know what to do. Lance shot at the Galra following Hunk and Hunk shot at the Galra following Lance. Instantly, Lance felt safer. He focused back on taking the fighters out with as few shots as possible.   


"Lance, do you know if Keith is okay?" Hunk asked. There was no time for them to use the video feed or for them to split their attention, so Lance only answered when he got to a gap in the waves of enemies.   


"I don't think he is, but he said he'd be here."

"Why are you doing this to me?! What are you trying to tell me?! I don't understand!" Keith faced the black lion from the floor. He really was much bigger than the other lions. It was like being an insect in front of a beast.  


The lion's eyes lit up and it felt like Black was looking straight at Keith. Without knowing why, Keith felt afraid and his hand reflexively covered his heart where it was being squeezed. He looked down at the hand on his chest like it had betrayed him.   


Keith was startled even more when the black lion opened its mouth and acted like it was going to scoop him up but stopped short and let down its ramp at Keith's feet. Now his heart was truly racing.   


"What do you want from me?" he asked quietly now knowing that he would be heard.   


He felt insistence from the lion and dread pooled in his belly.   


"Where is Shiro?" he all but whispered.   


The lion was urging him forward, compelling him to come.   


"No," Keith shook his head.   


With each passing moment Keith could feel the emotions of the black lion more clearly. Black was telling him that he was needed.   


"Shiro," Keith insisted.   


The urging got stronger and then he felt a deep love and affection that he knew to be Black's love for his paladin. It was slightly different then his love for Zarkon was, so Keith assumed it was his love for Shiro. It was followed by a great sense of sorrow and of longing. It was so powerful that Keith felt his own chest attacking him.  


"No," Keith pleaded. "Please, no."  


Underneath the other emotions, there was anger and a guilty kind of bloodlust that Keith had never felt himself. To Keith, bloodlust was bloodlust. He thought he understood now.   


Very reluctantly, he walked up the ramp and into the mouth of the beast. 

Allura's attention split when one of her indicators went off. She glanced over to see what it was and was shocked.   


"The black lion is active. It's opening its hanger door," she told Coran.   


"The black lion?" Coran was shocked as well. "We are close to Durra, it could be going to get that Captain."  


"Yes, but perhaps..." she didn't need to finish. Both of them were thinking the same thing but to say it aloud would be to let hope in.   


Allura switched to speaking over the comms. "Everyone, the black lion is coming out! We don't have time to clear one side of the Castle, the particle barrier will be on the port side! Please provide as much cover as you can!"  


"You're not in the black lion?" Lance asked.   


"No, I'm on the bridge," she confirmed as she watched the paladins moving into position.   


"Then..."  


"It could be going after Worsh," Pidge suggested.   


"Or it could have found Shiro," Hunk said the quiet part out loud.   


Allura lifted the particle barrier from the starboard side and the black lion bolted out. The Castle shook as it was targeted by all the little fighter ships that noticed the change and before she could close the barrier back, one ray from an ion canon hit the top of a thruster. The explosion knocked Coran over his station and to the floor and the side of Allura's head banged the corner of her console. Coran righted himself after quickly checking if his ribs were all in place and he saw Allura on the ground.   


"Princess Allura!" he rushed over, but not forgetting they were in battle, pressed the buttons to close the particle barrier before turning her over. She was bleeding profusely but her eyes fluttered open. Blood made one of her eyes red as it leaked over the white. "Allura?"

"NO!" Lance shouted when he saw the explosion on the Castle. He turned his ship and started speeding as fast as the shuttle could go directly at the battleship that had fired. He didn't care about anything else in that moment, he needed that ship to be gone. There was too much going on for Lance to handle. Nothing could go right, there was too much change, too much danger, too much too much! His entire body was tensed, his muscles all fighting better judgement in order to say clenched. If this is what it took, so be it! He would ram it!   


Before his eyes, the black lion shot past him to sink its claws into the haul of the battleship and its teeth into the ion canon that had just fired. It ripped the canon from the rest of the ship, tearing a gaping hole in its haul. Its mouth opened again, it's laser cutting all the way through to the other side. The fuel in the ship ignited and a series of explosions followed while the black lion backed off and started charging for another one.   


In the brief moment Lance had to awe at the power of the black lion, one of the other battleships had fired at him. Lance only had time to wonder if he'd sealed his helmet properly before the emptiness where half of his shuttle once was, sucked him from his seat. He floated out further and further from his shuttle while he tried not to panic. The only thing he could hear was his own erratic breathing as he fogged up the glass in front of him. He could make out the purple lights of the Galra ships around him. Could they see him? Did they know he was still alive? It would be so easy to finish him off. Why had he left Hunk when he'd gotten angry? What was this? He didn't know what he was doing anymore. He felt so alone.   


Lance suddenly saw black. The lights from the stars and the fight were gone. Something had closed around him, it looked like he'd been swallowed by darkness.   


Lance started to panic for real but then he found gravity by hitting something and red lights began to glow around him as the condensation on his helmet evaporated again.   


Red!   


Lance ran down the lion's throat to get to the cockpit.   


"Keith!" he yelled with some sort of excitement from the adrenaline he'd just received. He'd just been saved! It no longer mattered to him if this gave Keith ammunition to tease him for the next century, he was going to slather Keith in praise for this.   


When he got to Keith's chair he realized the cockpit was empty. Lance stopped as his negative emotions came crashing back down on him.   


"What's going on?" he asked aloud. The red lion wasn't moving, it was just waiting. "You saved me by yourself?"   


"Guys! Now that the Galra have seen the black lion, they're doubting that we can't form Voltron! Some of them are asking if they should retreat!" Lance heard Pidge say in his helmet.   


"Then give them a reason to retreat," Allura order in a cold and dangerous voice.   


It was so unlike how Lance thought of her that he took a seat and grabbed the controls without thinking. When everything lit up in red instead of blue, he let go and drew his hands back as if he had been burned.   


"What?" he asked.   


"Wait! Has anyone seen Lance?!" Hunk asked in a panicky way.   


"I'm still here," Lance said distantly. He didn't want to take this away from Keith, he'd already lost so much. Lance knew the black lion wasn't acting like he had found Shiro, but like he was out for revenge.   


"They've spotted the red lion! Two of the battleships have given out retreat orders!" Pidge updated.   


"Keith! Finally!" Hunk cheered in relief.   


"This is our chance! To the starboard side of the Castle! Follow me through the portal!" Allura commanded.   


The Castleship turned to its right and put as much space as it could between where it was and where it was going while the Galra ships scattered, some still trying to pursue and some breaking off. A portal started to open in front of the ship. Lance couldn't miss this portal. He grabbed the controls and punched it toward the brightest light. The red lion sliced through space like fire licks up the walls of a room. He was surprised when he made it through the portal before any of the other lions.   


Lance didn't have time to think now about what they'd just escaped or what they would do next. If Keith wasn't with Red, something terrible awaited them all.   


He parked Red in her hanger and didn't do anything to properly turn her off before he sprinted out to the center hanger.   


"Keith, my boy!" he heard Coran call like he was out of breath and worried. "Lance? Where did—"   


He ran straight past Coran without stopping. He reached the black lion's home and found him having just landed. He climbed up when Black lowered his ramp and stumbled into the cockpit.   


As he feared, Keith was there sitting with his hands in his face, shoulders shaking.   


Lance couldn't approach him all the way. Not yet.   


"I'm sorry I left you," he spoke with honest pain.   


Keith lifted his head up and turned to him. The sight before him was heartbreaking because, for once today, he understood exactly what something meant. Keith had endlessly flowing rivers down his cheeks and he looked completely defeated. His breath was shuttering and he looked at Lance like he was broken.   


Lance stepped close to him and crouched down. "You didn't put on your suit right," he pointed out, trying to smile like he was poking fun, like it was any normal day. But nothing about this was fun. Keith's wrist joint on his suit was leaking blood. Keith hadn't done anything to his cuts after Lance had left.   


Lance lifted said wrist and took off the hand and forearm piece of Keith's suit. Blood poured out from the glove as it was removed and Keith's whole hand was painted red. Lance squeezed Keith's hand between his to keep him from bleeding out further.   


They both looked over when someone else came running in, panting. Lance started to get up in concern when he saw Allura with blood dripping all down the side of her face and getting in her eye but Allura held up a hand to stop him.   


She panted and caught her breath, staring at Keith sitting in the pilot seat all the while. When she was calm, "So it's true?" she asked.   


Keith nodded his head and scrunched his eyes up as more tears flowed and he finally started to let out sobbing sounds. He clearly could control himself no longer.   


Allura sniffled and before Lance knew it, her face was wet with something other than blood. She came to them and sat on the armrest next to Keith. She reached over and held his head to her chest in an embrace. They both starting shaking.   


Lance was surprised Keith would let her hug him. If he had known, he would have hugged Keith first. But this was not the way things were.   


Allura steadied her voice before speaking and she quoted, "All will be accounted for. Every last deed. Until there is never a deed that wasn't done."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh... this chapter's crazy! I hope you understand why I split it from chapter four. This was incredibly exhausting to write mentally because it was chaotic, there were so many emotions and I had to keep track of everything in order to go back and forth! I really hope you guys like this, I put a lot of work into it for you! Thank you guys so much!


	6. The Prophecy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rika, since you like their dynamic, this one is for you!

The door to Keith's room slid open without warning. He looked up from his spot lying on the floor to see a very large, oddly shaped silhouette. He knew it was Allura with her hair down and fluffy and her dress billowing out around her, but the hallway lights were bright and his room was dim, only lit enough so that it felt less like he was in a box.   


Allura seemed startled when he looked at her.   


"The door was unlocked this time," she gestured around with stiff movements. "I only walked up to it," she explained.   


Keith laid his head back down. "Are you here to ask me to come to dinner?"  


"No, actually..." she came and sat down next to him. As the door closed his eyes had to readjust to the darkness. "The ship has to be repaired so Coran recruited Hunk to help him but they need new material since the explosion blew off half of one of the thrusters and Lance volunteered to go get the ore but he refused to take one of the lions, he wanted to take a shuttle again but Pidge told him that there was no way she was letting him fly another shuttle after he almost died in the last one so she took him in the green lion and I don't know enough about the ship to help Coran and I can't fly a lion to go get materials and the Castle is broken so there's nothing for me to do!"  


Keith took a second to take all of that in. "Lance almost died?" that was, of course, the most pressing thing on his mind out of all of that.   


"Oh," Allura started like she hadn't realized Keith had been shut in his room for the past day. "Lance couldn't get the blue lion to respond to him, so he took one of the shuttles out to fight. When he came back, the shuttle was destroyed and he was piloting the red lion."  


"Red?" Keith asked in bewilderment.   


"Well, I think so anyway," she amended. "When the lions came back, Coran went to go get you to see if you were okay, but Lance was the one who came out of the red lion. He won't talk about it though."  


Keith tried to think about whether that made sense to him or not. Red was hard to win over and she was loyal to a fault, but if Red wasn't his anymore...   


When he didn't comment, Allura went on. "So now I'm here."  


Keith sighed. It sounded like she needed attention but Keith was not the best person to give it. Keith wasn't good with people in general, let alone an alien Princess who wanted to talk. Sure, they had been sparring against each other more frequently, in fact, he's probably spent more time with Allura than anyone else on the ship lately, but their conversations were short and usually involved yelling.   


"And the real reason you're here is?"   


"I'm not hungry," she responded quickly.   


He sat up. "I think it's because you've run out of distractions," he told her bluntly.   


She made a mildly defensive sound. "When I came here I thought you'd be more depressed," she expressed, insensitively.  


If Keith were a different person, he'd probably get mad at her, but Keith didn't care enough about what other people thought to take offense.   


"What you really want is for me to talk about what happened, right? What's the point in that?"  


"It should help you deal with things."  


"You're one to talk," he pointed out.   


Allura turned angry. "You know nothing! You're whole family isn't dead!" she yelled with venom.   


Still, Keith stayed calm. "You really don't know much about me."  


Allura's expression lessened the slightest bit. She wanted to know more and was waiting to see if Keith would offer it willing.   


"I'm an orphan, Allura."  


Her face dropped. "We're the same?" she asked in a soft voice.   


"No," Keith shook his head. "My mother left when I was a baby. I don't remember anything about her. My dad wouldn't talk about her so I don't know what she was like or why she left us. My dad kept us isolated, we lived in the middle of a desert. He died when I was eight and there was no one who knew I was living alone for months. I got in trouble at school and when they couldn't get a hold of my dad, I had to tell them that he was dead. I was put in foster care and I—"  


"Wait," Allura interrupted. "I'm sorry, what is foster care?"  


"It's where the state takes custody of a minor and places them in temporary homes just so that they have a place to stay. The state pays the parents to take kids in so you can get a lot of people who don't care about the kids at all, they just want the extra money."  


"Oh, I see. Please continue." Allura was listening intently. Looks like Keith was giving her what she wanted after all, but he was trying to prove a point.   


Keith still took a moment. It wasn't easy for him to talk about this. "I was moved from house to house and it was hard. I couldn't stay out of trouble and I didn't think my life meant anything. But then, when I was twelve, I met Shiro. At the time, he was in his senior year at the Galaxy Garrison and he was about to graduate their piloting course. This school's mission statement was to train the next generation of space explorers. Shiro was visiting schools all over the country to recruit new young students. He told me I had talent as a pilot, that I had potential. It was the first time in years anyone had told me I was worth something."  


Allura gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Keith hadn't noticed before but she looked stricken by his story.   


He looked away from her to continue, he wouldn't be able to say anything if he watched her expression. "Shiro even told me that if I applied to get into the Garrison, he'd personally recommend me. It didn't take me long to decide I was going. I found out that it was a boarding school, so if I got in, I wouldn't have to stay in foster homes anymore. But when I got into the school, it's not like I suddenly stopped getting into trouble. I think Shiro felt responsibility for my behavior because he had recommended me to the school and to all these people he looked up to. I expected him to yell at me but he never did. Before I knew it, he was taking care of me. I didn't think I needed to be taken care of until I started to feel like my life was getting better because of him. Then he left for Kerberos. It was supposed to take only six months. He made me promise not to get into too much trouble while he was gone. It was his dream to be out in space, so I was happy for him and I promised. Three months later we got news that because of a pilot error their ship had crashed and none of them survived."  


Allura made another weird noise but Keith chose to ignore it.   


"I didn't believe it for a second. I didn't know what had really happened but I knew there was no way Shiro would crash his ship. I tried so hard to keep my promise to Shiro but... it was so much harder when I didn't know if I'd ever see him again. I got kicked out of school for beating another kid half to death after he called Shiro a useless failure. I knew he said it just to provoke me but I was so tired of never fighting back when he messed with me, I just—" Keith got worked up thinking about it.   


He collected himself with a deep breath through his nose. "For a while I had thought I'd lost my only chance at ever finding out what had really happened to Shiro. I didn't know what to do and I had no place to go again, but I wasn't going to go back to foster care. I went back to the little house in the desert my dad had built and I felt something out there. So I stayed and I searched for what I was feeling and it led me back to Shiro when he escaped the Galra on his own. I was able to save him from the people who were trying to cover everything up and that same day we found the blue lion with Lance and she brought us here. I suddenly had Shiro back and I had a defined goal for the first time in so long."  


Keith looked back at Allura so that he could finish making his point. "But now Shiro's gone for good and ending a war is so ambiguous. We're not the same, my whole life I've had things taken from me. Now is no different."  


Allura's beautiful blue eyes glistened and she had to look away this time. "I didn't realise. It's true that my life before the war started was blissful by comparison," she admitted. "But you must understand—"  


"I'm not trying to compare my grief to yours," Keith stopped her. "I know that losing three people isn't comparable to losing everyone you knew. Just know that other people have griefs too." His point made, he laid himself back down.   


After a stretched moment, Allura very slowly laid herself on her side facing him. Never before had Keith felt more awkward around her than in this moment. He stiffened up and refused to look anywhere but the ceiling. The silence between them lasted so long that Keith began to wonder if Allura planned on sleeping right there in the middle of his floor.   


"I'm sorry," she practically breathed in his ear. This felt so intimate, like a secret, but Keith couldn't explain why. "I... regret a lot of things I took for granted back on Altea. I acted like everything would always be waiting for me and I took more interest in other cultures than in my own. I was able to cry for my father once his memories were gone and I cried for Shiro, but I haven't been able to cry for my people. I've been wondering since waking up, 'What's wrong with me?'" she whispered.   


Keith turned his head and met her eyes. They were full of sorrow but no tears came. All he did was stare back at her with his own pained expression, but he knew this meant something to the both of them. It was, in essence, comfort without words. Perhaps they were the same in some ways.   


Without breaking their eye contact, Allura made a small gesture to Keith's left hand, the one closest to her and the one rapped in a bandage. "If you won't let me heal that, I can at least fix your glove," she continued to speak softly, not disrupting their quiet sense of togetherness.   


She didn't know how important his gloves were to him or why. There was something in the way she offered to help him that really squeezed at his heart.   


"I didn't know you could sow," he remarked quietly. There was so little space between them, it hardly took any voice at all for them to hear each other.   


Allura smiled like he had made a joke. "Actually, I can't, but my mice can."  


"Your mice? How can they know how to sow when you don't?" he asked, picturing that one scene from Cinderella. He'd reference that if only Allura could get it.   


"I don't know how either," she chuckled.   


"I had always thought that as a Princess, you'd be taught all sorts of things for the sake of being able to interact with anyone." At least that was his perception of old Earth Princesses.   


Her smile waned. "I did have a governess. She was brilliant and tried to teach me a great many things, but I was too picky about what I was interested in."  


"Is that one of the things you regret?"  


"Yes," she admitted. She looked to the floor and moved her arm into a more comfortable position under her head. "She was a member of the largest temple in our capital city. She would always ask me to come to the temple in disguise so that I could be there without distractions and actually learn something. The royal family attended services at the temple once every phoeb in adherence to tradition. They were the same ten services every deca-phoeb. I didn't think my father and mother actually believed in what the five prophets said and I never went to the temple outside of my obligation. But then my father built the lions and he built five of them. I've been questioning whether he believed or not ever since. My biggest regret is that I didn't take the time to learn more about the beliefs of my people. I know hardly anything about what they held sacred. Their beliefs will die with Coran, if they haven't already died long ago."  


Keith tried to imagine what it would be like to have all the spiritual beliefs of Earth just disappear over night. Whether he believed in a higher power of not, religion shaped human culture and defined the way many people lived their lives. It was integral to each society on Earth.   


"Why don't you ask Coran to teach you? If it's important to you, you should ask," he suggested.   


Allura looked him in the eyes. "I'm afraid."  


Keith search her face for anything she wasn't already telling him. "Why?" he asked.   


"Because it's expected that the royal family takes Altea's beliefs seriously. If I admitted that I didn't know anything, it would disgrace my family."  


"But..." Keith knew he needed to tread carefully. "There are only two of you left. If you don't want it to disappear you have to learn it and then teach it to other people."  


"Who would I teach it to? There are no Alteans left."  


"If you learn about it, I'm sure the team would be happy to listen to you share. And you can do what most people do. If you have children, teach the beliefs to them."  


Allura bit her lip in thought. "Maybe I will," she paused. "But if I do, you had better be the first person to listen to what I've learned."  


"Fine, we'll make it a deal," he held out his hand to her.   


She looked at it, clearly not knowing what to do. It was his bandaged hand as well, so she was probably hesitant to touch it. Keith thought he'd have to explain to her, but she slowly reached out her own hand and gently grasped his. Their hands rested between them and Allura didn't let go. Keith knew enough about human social norms to know that continuing to hold hands between friends was weird but Keith had never held anyone but his dad's hand before. This only felt familial to him and he craved that feeling just as much as he thought Allura did. So he wouldn't tell Allura that this was weird and he wouldn't ask her to let go.   


"Can I ask you something?" Keith asked after some time of just soaking in this feeling.   


"Of course," Allura assured him.   


"You said earlier that you were more interested in learning about the beliefs of other cultures. Does that include the Galra?" he ventured.   


Allura gave him a sad smile. "Yes."  


Keith wasn't sure if she wanted to elaborate. "Will you tell me about them?" he chanced.   


She sighed softly. "Alright then." She looked to the side as if trying to remember. "There were differing beliefs about gods on Daibazaal, but there was a prophecy that held wide belief among the Galra. The older generation was always looking for signs that the prophecy was about to come true so it was very important to know the prophecy for any diplomatic meetings with them. I can't say I remember the whole thing anymore. I must admit that I wanted to forget it when the war started." She thought for a moment more and Keith waited patiently.   


"I can't tell you word for word but I will paraphrase. 'When the Galra have lost their way and have scattered like yondrovs, a leader will rise to bring his people back to Kovalil. He will be raised in adversity, inheriting two worlds. As he grows he will kill his brothers and sisters and he will drink their blood. His reign will cause uproar, the house will be severed in two. No one can measure his might, for he will not act alone. He will heal the deformed hahka limbs and plant new roots in tilled soil.' That's as much of it as I can remember."  


"That sounds... horrific," Keith responded. "And there were several words I didn't understand."  


Allura giggled at his bemusement. "Let's see if I can explain then. Hahka is a special type of tree that grew on all the planets in the Aepus cluster where Altea and Daibazaal were. No one is sure which planet the tree originated on. Then... ah! Kovalil is a mythical place or it may have been a real place at some point, but the word in Galran just means home. And then..." she couldn't seem to come up with another word Keith wouldn't have understood.   


"Yondrovs," Keith supplied.   


"Ah, yes! Yondrovs! They were a creature from Daibazaal that were mostly solitary unless there was a famine. In which case, they would hunt together in groups to catch larger prey," she explained.   


"That sounds like wolves," Keith thought.   


"Wolves," Allura pronounced with effort.   


"Creatures on Earth."  


"I see. Was there anything else?" she asked.   


"No, but... did Galra actually drink the blood of someone they killed?" he asked with disgust on his face.   


"That comes from an old belief that drinking the blood of beasts would grant you their power. When I was growing up, it was commonly understood to mean 'to gain strength from.' The prophecy was ancient even back then though, so it could be literal. I hope it's not," she added.   


"Do you think the prophecy could be happening now? If it were real, that is."  


Allura hummed. "I think the Galra are too organised under Zarkon to be like yondrovs. But I don't remember the whole thing. Coran might know more about that too."  


"I like Coran," Keith blurted.   


Allura laughed like the ringing of bells. It was the most open, honest-to-God laugh he had ever heard from her. She smiled at him with the warmth of all the stars they'd ever flown past.   


"I like him too!" There was something in the way she'd said that that made Keith wonder...  


"Did you know Coran for a long time before all of this?" he asked.   


"No," she shook her head, still smiling.   


So that's what is was. "I had always thought Coran was like an uncle to you."  


"He was my father's engineering consultant for Voltron. I didn't meet him until the war started and my father wanted his help in case something happened to the Castle of Lions or the lions we still had in our possession. My father must have trusted Coran a lot to save him along with me. I'm very grateful that Coran is so kind to me."  


"He is kind," Keith agreed. "And he seems to like taking care of people."  


"Yes, he does. That's why he persists in calling me Princess, even if there is nothing left for me to rule."  


"That's not what makes a Princess, Allura."  


She gave him a funny look like she didn't quite believe him but didn't want to say so. "Keith. May I ask you something?"  


He gave a single nod, showing his consent.   


"Would you be my friend?" she asked.   


"I thought we were friends. I think." He wasn't entirely sure because Allura had not always been... the most forgiving, shall we say.   


"On Altea, there is the type of friendship we have now, the type where we can get along and we have a positive view of each other, and then there is a deeper friendship that has to be asked for."  


"What does that entail?" Keith didn't mean to sound skeptical, he just didn't want to promise something he didn't understand.  


Allura looked at their hands, still clasped together between them. "It is a promise of trust and a declaration that we will come to each other's aid no matter the distance. The word for it in Altean is a compound word that literally means 'though we are apart, we are together.'"  


Keith looked to their hands as well. The sentiment was so nice and so reminiscent of how his and Shiro's relationship had been that he couldn't help how it stirred his feelings.   


"I accept," he said simply, making sure to look at her.   


Her smile was simply beautiful. She looked so comfortable even though the floor was metal and her arm must have been falling asleep under her head.   


"Thank you," she whispered.   


Looks like Allura had gotten what she had wanted, but Keith had gotten something out of it too. 

Lance had just gotten back from a very long trip of flying with Pidge and all he wanted to do was get out of his armor and relax in his own room. Pidge had been trying to get him to talk to her about things he wasn't ready to talk to her about all day long! All he had wanted to do was focus on their objective, but no~! Not when there was plenty of time to kill and absolutely nothing happened on their trip. No contact with anything. Not a ship, not a new species, not even regular alien planet fauna. This was not Lance's day. But honestly, when was the last time it had been Lance's day?   


Lance was still in a bad mood by the time he rounded the last corner into the hallway where the crew's rooms were. He almost didn't notice, but when he got to his door there was a stack of paper laying at his feet. The top one was folded in half so he couldn't tell what they were.   


He bent down and picked them up and started flipping through the pages. Now he remembered. These were the drawings he drew in Keith's room while Keith had slept. They weren't that bad if he said so himself. He had drawn all of the lions, Voltron, some cool looking aliens they had met...  


Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure some drawings were missing from the pile. Maybe they had gotten lost under Keith's bed.   


He flipped the folded one open to see which one it was, but it wasn't one of his.   


On it were a crudely drawn person in red and person in blue. The red one had its arm over the blue one's shoulders and it looked sick. The blue one had its arm around the red one's side and it was clearly looking at the red one. At the top it read, 'Thanks' and at the bottom, 'I think I can sleep now'.   


Keith could keep whichever drawings of Lance's he wanted, so long as Lance got to keep this one. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me six chapters but I finally got to the actual prophecy! What can I say? I just love character building. 
> 
> Aaaaand that short scene at the end is to remind everyone that this is a Klance fic, I promise!


	7. Trio

"I thought for sure you'd ride with Hunk," Pidge commented after an extremely long stretch of silence.   


Here we go again, Lance thought. "I dealt with you badgering me yesterday, I can deal with you again today, but if I see Hunk look at me with that kicked puppy look there's no way I'll last. If I only hear his voice, I'll be fine."  


Hunk's face suddenly appeared on Pidge's screen giving him that very look.   


"Agh! Nope! Not fair!" Lance shielded his eyes and backed himself into the rear of the cockpit. They were out again to get more ore since the inhabitants of the planet they went to yesterday were only willing to trade them so much. Hunk had decided to come along too, probably because he was worried about Lance.   


Pidge sighed. "We're just worried about you." Yep, there it was.   


"I know," Lance didn't argue.   


"And you seem less... upset than you were yesterday," she tried to pick the right word.   


"I am," he confirmed.   


"So you'll talk to us and tell us what's going on?" she asked.   


"No."  


Pidge sighed even more exasperatedly. "Are you sure that's what you want?"  


"Yeah, Lance, this could be your only opportunity to talk to us without being overheard or interrupted for a while. And it's just us, buddy," Hunk encouraged.   


That was the thing, Lance wasn't sure. Yesterday, he was still so angry that he knew he didn't want to talk about anything, but today? Things were different than they were yesterday, but he was still trying to figure it out himself. But if he were honest with himself, what would he do in space without these two?   


He slowly looked up and saw that Hunk was still watching him with concern. Like he had predicted, it was too much.   


"Fine, but I still don't want to talk about everything."  


Pidge and Hunk both made relieved sounds.   


"So is the reason you're not flying Blue really because you flew Red?" Hunk started where he thought Lance would.   


That was definitely not where Lance would have started. But then again, how would he tell them the real reason he was mad without telling them things about Keith that Keith probably wouldn't want them, or anyone for that matter, to know? So maybe this was the least worst place to start after all.   


Lance thought for a while about what to say.   


"Lance?" Pidge questioned when he took too long to sound normal.   


"I'll answer, I just..." he trailed off and then sighed. "Yes, I flew the red lion."  


"Wow. How did that happen?" Pidge asked. It sounded like she was trying not to give a big reaction; her tone was neutral.   


"My shuttle was half destroyed and I got sucked into space. Before I knew it, the red lion had swallowed me and I thought Keith had saved me but... he wasn't there. It was empty," he admitted to them.   


"And then you flew her?" Hunk asked.   


"Yeah. Very briefly."  


"Did you... feel a connection?" he continued to probe.   


Oh, boy did Lance not want to think about that. Had he? "I think so."  


"So is that why you've been so... angry? Because you don't have your connection with Blue anymore?" Hunk was so gentle about it, but Lance still felt his heart sting.   


"No!" Lance started. "Well, yes, but that's not most of it."  


"What do you mean?" Pidge asked and then she looked over her shoulder and saw that Lance was still way in the back of her cockpit. "Lance, get back up here," she ordered.   


Lance came up next to her seat and sat down so that he could lean his back against the white and black chair. "I've been angry because..." he thought about how to put it. "I don't know! It's just—" he drew his knees up and massaged his temples. "Keith flew the black lion," he finally told them.   


"What?" Pidge asked. Her voice sounded steady but her grip on Green's controls tighten.   


"Does that mean...?" there was a lot of anxiety in Hunk's voice.   


"But that happened after Keith's already been put through too much. It isn't fair! Keith was already stressed out of his mind and then he starts hallucinating because he hadn't slept in two weeks and now I've stolen Red from him and then this!" Lance pulled at his hair as his anger resurfaced.   


"Wait, wait, wait, hold on! Are you saying that—" Hunk tried to get a clear answer.   


"Yes!" Lance bursted out. Tears started springing from his eyes. "It means we're never going to find Shiro because Shiro isn't anywhere we can find! It means Shiro's dead and that's it!" Lance hugged himself tightly around the knees. "I've been trying not to think about it because this reality sucks! Why did Shiro have to leave us?! I'm so mad at Shiro because he's gone and he left us all behind to deal and I'm so mad at myself for being mad at Shiro! Up until last night I thought Keith would be handling this worse than me but now I don't know anymore! I think it's somehow unfair that I'm still so upset even though Keith seems to be handling this way better than he should be. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now." He finished by burying his face in his knees to make it less obvious that he was crying.   


After a moment, "Why didn't you tell us?!" Pidge sounded pissed.   


It was so beyond what Lance had expected that he forgot he was trying to hide his tears and looked over his shoulder at her. She was looking right at him with set brows and a glare that could kill, but tears were streaming down her face as well. And that's when it dawned on Lance. _Oh, shit!_  


Lance scrambled up to attend to her. "Pidge, I'm sorry! I— I wasn't thinking—"  


"Yeah, you're right!" she swatted his hands away. "You really weren't thinking! How could you keep something like that from us, Lance?!"  


"I wasn't trying to keep that from you. When I was avoiding talking to you, I didn't think through what that meant. I swear it wasn't on purpose!"  


"So that gives you an excuse to act like an ass?!"  


"Pidge, you don't have to yell at Lance," Hunk told her. His face was just as wet as theirs were and he couldn't stop sniffling. He was clearly trying to keep it as much together as possible. Both lions had stopped dead in space.   


Lance felt double the guilt upon seeing Hunk crying and he rushed to apologize to him. "Hunk, I'm so sorry. I—"  


"Why shouldn't I yell at him?!" Pidge's voice overshadowed his. "He's known our friend was dead for a couple days and he said nothing! We have just as much a right to know as any of the others!"  


"You're not wrong but this is hard for all of us. You can't expect Lance or anyone to act normally right now." Hunk was still trying to control himself but it seemed he might have been losing as he took off his helmet to scrub at his eyes.   


"Hard for all of us?!" Pidge turned back on Lance. "Do you even know what we were doing after we escaped the Galra?"  


Lance didn't know so he didn't answer.   


"While you were off, what? feeling sorry for yourself? we spent hours sealing off the outside of the ship where a whole chunk was blown off so that we could re-compress that part of the ship and assess the damage from the inside. We were all wondering where you, Keith and Allura were because we didn't see any of you until the next day! You know what I did the rest of that day? I kept getting distracted worrying about you guys while I was trying to make sure our repair attempts didn't blow up the rest of the ship!"  


Lance didn't know what to say. He knew the ship needed repairs but he didn't know all that that entailed, it wasn't his expertise. He wouldn't have been much help even if he had been there.   


Pidge glared at him, waiting for him to give any sort of response at all. Before Lance could come up with something to say, she became overwhelmed by her emotions and hid her face as she let out a true sob.   


"Lance, it's okay. She knows you're hurt as much as she is. She won't be as mad tomorrow," Hunk promised.   


Lance's eyes spilled over even more tears at seeing her like this. He had never seen her cry before. Pidge always let her determination to make things better lead her to solutions, but there wasn't a solution this time.   


He went to gently put his hand on her shoulder again to try and comfort her. She batted his hand away more viciously this time.   


"Where were you?!" she asked with more hurt than hatred.  


He knew that the truth could sound like an excuse but what else could he say? "I was trying to keep Keith from bleeding out while he cried and attempting to convince Allura to leave Keith long enough to get her head injury healed."   


Accepting that for what it was, Pidge looked away from him with a scowl on her face. She sniffled and tried to stop herself from crying and then grabbed Green's controls and turned her around.  


"We're going back," she said with finality.   


"Woah, woah, woah! Pidge, we can't just go back," Hunk sped Yellow around her to block her way.   


She had the courtesy to stop for him instead of just flying under or over him. "Why not? We should be with the others, we need to do something."  


"Like what?" Hunk asked.   


"I don't know! We should all be together, plan a funeral, just something," her tears started spilling over again.   


"You're right, we should do those things, but the Castle isn't safe in its current condition. We need this ore so that we can finish fixing the ship. The Castle isn't moving anywhere until we do," Hunk reasoned.   


"I know, Hunk, but—" she couldn't finish her sentence as she hung her head and cried even harder.   


Both boys seemed at a loss for words. Lance stood over her, worrying but he didn't touch her and Hunk continued sniffling and wiping at his eyes. They both waited until Pidge started to calm down.   


"Come on," Hunk encouraged. "We'll get our work done and when we get back, I'll make some food and we can all eat together."  


Pidge nodded her head gently. "Okay," she agreed. She turned Green back around and they started heading back toward their original destination.   


They were silent for a long time.   


"Are Allura and Keith okay? They were injured?" Pidge asked quietly.   


At first Lance wasn't sure she had really said anything, but after a moment of not hearing anything, Pidge turned to look at him.   


"Oh. Uh, Allura eventually went into a healing pod, so her head injury is fine now. Keith, of course, refused. He has some deep cuts on his hand and fingers and he had lost a lot of blood. After some convincing he let Allura put this paste stuff on it and I wrapped it up for him." Lance scratched the back of his head. "I think he'll be okay, Allura wouldn't have been satisfied if that stuff she'd put on him wouldn't take care of it."  


"But you said he was hallucinating," Pidge remembered.   


Right. "That happened before he cut his hand. Besides, he said he can sleep now." Lance was trying not to worry her.  


Looking back ahead, she didn't respond for a while. "Okay," was all she said.   


There was another long silence. The three of them had known each other for a long time now, but Lance had never made Pidge quite so angry before and he didn't know how to deal with it. He was sure Hunk had never seen Pidge so angry before either. It was a blessing that Hunk wasn't mad at him too. Lance believed what Hunk had said earlier, that Pidge would be a lot less angry tomorrow, but that didn't change how tense he felt now.   


He went and sat with his back against the back of Pidge's chair for the rest of their trip. It was best to just let everything be. 

Lance banged jovially on the metal door, slipping the stolen key card through the slot and barging in. "Okay! New kid!"   


A very small boy with a mop of mess brown hair screeched in fright at the intrusion.   


"If we're going to be on a team, we need to get to know each other! And what better way to do that than by sneaking out?!" Lance announced.   


The small boy's fright immediately turned into anger. "Shhh!" he marched up to Lance and got in his face. "Don't say something like that in my room! You could get me expelled!" he said through tightly gritted teeth.   


"That's what I was trying to tell him!" Hunk called a bit meekly from the doorway. He wasn't quite willing to commit to entering another man's room without his permission like Lance was.   


Lance looked from the angry little gremlin in front of him to the half packed backpack he had dropped when Lance had scared him.   


"So are you going to tell me that you weren't planning on doing just that which could get you expelled?" Lance asked coyly.   


The boy rushed to zip his backpack up and hide the contents from view. Lance was of course curious about the bag, but he could settle for something else if the boy was willing to go along with him.   


"So how about this, I won't tell anyone that you were planning on sneaking out if you sneak out with Hunk and I," he offered generously.   


The boy glared at him. "You can't be serious. With you two idiots we'd all get caught. I'm not risking my spot at this school and you can't blackmail me into anything."  


Lance quickly analyzed how to play his cards. "No blackmail, alright?" Lance held up his hands. "You'll be our communications officer though. You've been assigned to our team, if you didn't know." He pointed to Hunk who waved. "I noticed you were a new student, so I've tracked you down, stolen one of the master key cards and came here at risk to myself and my best friend all for the purpose taking you off campus to get some real food."  


The boy looked at him like he was positively insane. "What? Why?"  


"Because!" he point a finger toward the ceiling like he was about to say something that warranted absolute focus. "Food is the best way to make friends!"  


The boy blinked. "Yeah, you're verifiably insane," he said out loud what he had been thinking.   


"He could be insane."  


"Hey!"  


"But he does have a point. The food here isn't very good. You can find a lot better in town," Hunk vouched (sort of) for him.   


The boy looked between the two of them with a raised eyebrow. "You're not gonna leave unless I come with you, are you?"  


Lance walked to the boy's bed and sat himself on it with crisscrossed legs. "Nope, not a chance."  


"I'm pretty sure this isn't how you make friends," the boy stomped grumpily to his door.   


"Perfect! Field trip time!" Lance cheered and galloped on ahead of the others.   


"You get used to him," Hunk said as he kept pace at the new kid's side. He kept glancing around the hallways in an anxious manner.   


"I hope not."

"Ooo! We could get ice cream!" Lance bounded through the door of the little shop making the bell at the top ring.   


"He's eaten every street food we've come across and he still has room for ice cream? Is he okay?" the mop headed boy asked in shock and mild disgust.   


"Eh," Hunk shrugged his shoulders following after Lance. "He's the youngest of four, his older siblings always ate food faster than he could. I'd say he's just making up for it now."  


"I didn't expect him to be the youngest," the boy mumbled. "But I guess it makes sense why he's so loud."  


Hunk laughed at that.   


"Okay, I want three scoops! Mocha, chocolate and strawberry, in that order please," Lance ordered at the counter. He asked for one of the fancy cones and a plethora of toppings to finished it off.   


Lance turned to Hunk and the boy. "What do you want?" Lance asked the light brunet curiously.   


Looking at the server, "I'll have a scoop of vanilla in a cone," he ordered.   


Lance crossed his arms in disapproval. "Just vanilla?"  


"Vanilla is simple and I like it," the boy replied.   


"Is this one of those, 'I need something simple because the rest of my life is too complicated,' type of scenarios?" Lance did a voice like he was mimicking someone they'd never met.   


"Dude! Chill out, that's kinda rude," Hunk chided him.   


"I just like vanilla," the boy didn't even try to defend himself. He seemed just as off put by Lance as he had been a few seconds ago. At least he wasn't offended.   


"Uh-huh, a likely story..." Lance looked mock-skeptical. It was easy for Hunk to tell he was playing around, but others might take him too seriously.   


"Would you like something, sir?" the server asked Hunk.   


"I'll take a scoop of chocolate in a cone please," he requested politely.   


Lance squinted his eyes at him.   


"With sprinkles," he added.   


Once they had paid for their ice cream, they all agreed to start making their way back to the school. It was getting dark even though it was practically summer. They licked at their frozen desserts as they walked slowly back up the streets Lance seemed so familiar with. Of course, Lance talked the whole way.   


"And Marco was still trying to convince mom that no one was coming over so she didn't have to cook but she, of course, wouldn't listen and we were all worried that the surprise would be ruined but— ah!" Lance suddenly ducked behind a street trash can.   


"Do you see a patrol?!" Hunk asked ready to fly into an alley. The boy looked around wildly.   


"No!" Lance whispered. "Tall guy, grey shirt, red jacket, really cool shoes."  


Hunk looked down the street curiously. "It looks like he's going into one of the shops."  


Lance sighed in relief and came back out.   


"Dude, what was that?"  


"Let's walk on the other side of the street," Lance pointed and looked both ways before crossing. The other two followed closely behind.   


"Okay, who was that?" Hunk insisted.   


"My first day of school this year, my sister Veronica came with to send me off. She met that guy here in town and followed him all over. She completely forgot about me! Now she calls me after every weekend asking if I've seen him again. She so annoying! I thought she was delusional to think he'd be interested in her, but then I ran into him again and he asked me about her! It's so gross and creepy!"  


As Lance went on, the small boy's fists started trembling at his sides. "Shut up!" he bursted out.   


"Huh?" Lance whirled around on him.   


"Why would you talk about your own sister like that?! At least you get to talk to her! You're a total jerk!" he yelled.   


"Woah, woah, woah. First off, she's my sister, I can get away with saying anything I want about her as long as I never let anyone else get away with a single bad word toward her. Second, just because I think she annoying sometimes doesn't mean that I don't like talking to her. And third, I'd do anything for her. Anything expect creep on older guys that I think aren't good enough for her. I have standards," Lance amended.   


"Yeah, well, you're taking her for granted."  


"I am not, I love her with all my heart! Siblings are supposed to annoy each other!"  


"Yeah, whatever," the boy grumbled.   


Lance eyed him up and down. "This is part of your 'my life is a complicated tragedy that no one understands' thing, isn't it?"  


"Hey! Lance! Don't say things like that to people we've just met! That's really rude!" Hunk rebuked him.   


Lance went on anyway. "What's your name again, kid?"  


"My name is Pidge Gunderson!" the boy shouted in annoyance.   


Lance snorted.   


"What?" Pidge huffed.   


Lance started chuckling. "PG."  


"What?" Pidge asked again, this time confused.   


"Your initials are PG," he laughed.   


Hunk started laughing too.   


Pidge looked between both of them like they had lost it. "Now you're laughing too? Sure! Real mature!" he told Hunk.   


Lance laughed even harder. "It's comments like that that make it funny! You do it to yourself! Plus, you're just so small!"  


Pidge started stomping ahead of them just finishing the last bit of his ice cream. "You're the one who's annoying."  


"Hey!" they heard from a ways behind them. "You three are students, aren't you!"  


"Shit!" was all Pidge had time to say before he was dragged by Hunk into an alleyway between two buildings.   


"Oh no!" Lance could be heard shouting dramatically. He started to run down the street.   


"Is he leaving us?!" Pidge asked in outrage as Lance was headed in a different direction.   


"No, just come on!" Hunk tried to get him to run away faster.   


"I'm going to get caught!" Lance yelled loudly and then his ice cream could be seen being hurled across the gap between buildings.   


"Hey!" the security patrol yelled, enraged. Presumably because his uniform was now covered in ice cream.   


"So then you're leaving him?!" Pidge asked, just as outraged by that idea.   


"No," Hunk started leading them through back alley after back alley, clearly knowing where he was going. "Lance is a really fast runner. He's outrun the security guards before. I can't outrun them, so he's leading them away," Hunk explained.   


"Well that's great and all, but how are we going to get back inside the Garrison?! He has the master key card!"  


"Not anymore," Hunk flashed him the card.   


"When did—?"  


"Right before I shoved you in the alley."  


Pidge hadn't even seen that happen.   


"Once we get to the school, we'll see if we can wait for Lance. He'll try loosing the guy further away from campus."  


"You guys seriously are insane! You've done this before!"  


"How else is Lance supposed to make friends? He won't join a study group," Hunk shrugged.   


"Seriously?!"  


Pidge followed Hunk the rest of the way back to their school campus. They went to one of the back emergency exit doors that could only be opened by a master key card from the outside.   


They both panted to catch their breaths. "If Lance doesn't show up in five minutes, we're going inside and I'm going to bed!" Pidge resolved.   


"Aw, give him a little more time than that. He saved us both from detention already," Hunk pleaded.   


"I want— to go— to bed," he said between pants.   


They didn't have to wait long anyway. Lance came running up to them like he knew the exact spot they'd be waiting. His beautiful sun-kissed skin was flushed from exertion making his cheeks full and his grin brighter.   


"Hunk, my friend, you are the only person I would ever sacrifice mocha ice cream for," he was still grinning from ear to ear.   


"Thanks buddy," Hunk smiled in response. "This is why you'll always be my best friend."  


"Okay, come on," they opened the door and Lance ushered Pidge inside. "We'll take you to your room. If you use your own key card this late, it'll be flagged in their system."  


"Speak from experience?" Pidge asked.   


"Haha! You know it!" Lance winked and bounded off ahead of the other two.   


"Is he always like this?" Pidge watched Lance bouncing with energy.   


"Not exactly. He'll get stir crazy if he stays inside too long. He's just pumped up on adrenaline now. He'll be fine," Hunk explained.   


"Until he needs another dose," he said under his breath.   


Hunk heard anyway. "You don't like him?"   


Pidge hesitated before answering. "No, I was just thinking, maybe he's not so bad at making friends after all," he admitted.   


Hunk grinned. "I'll tell him you said that."  


"Please don't."

"Hey, I thought the planet we were going to was uninhabited," Hunk commented as they reached the right solar system.   


The small orange and blue planet was poking out from behind its host star on their screens. Dozens of ships were orbiting the sphere in varying parallels to the equator, proof that something unexpected was going on.   


"I guess we got more outdated information. It could be a mining operation," Pidge suggested. "Let's go around and have a look from the dark side."  


Lance came around Pidge's seat to look for himself. "Can you tell what types of ships those are?" he asked.   


"Not sure, but they're not Galra." Hunk was looking at his sensor readouts.   


"Yeah, they use a different type of fuel," Pidge agreed as she steered a large arc around the planet.   


"We shouldn't get too close until we make contact, we don't want to spook them," Lance made a call after looking over Pidge's shoulder at her readouts for himself. The ships in orbit weren't very technologically advanced when compared to Altean and Galran ships. Still, they were beyond what humans had created thus far.   


As the dark side of the planet was revealed, they saw artificial lights webbing and bunching across the surface.   


"I think it's more than a mining operation. I'm reading evidence of a water cycle and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. I think it's an entire civilization," Hunk said.   


"I'm getting the same thing," Pidge confirmed. "It looks like the planet still has the ore we need. So, should we hail them and see if they'll trade with us?"  


Without decorum, Pidge's screen was suddenly masked over with the image of a fine alien with lavender skin and lock after lock of flowing silver hair. It's sharp eyes pierced into the cockpit.   


"I am Prince Lotor of the Galran Empire."  


"Hunk?" Lance called anxiously.   


"I see him."  


"This planet is under my personal protection. Should you have friendly intentions, you are welcome to visit and trade with us. Should your intentions be unfriendly, I will eliminate any foreign might." Short and to the point, the Prince was gone from their screens.   


They all stared at where his face had been.   


"Could he see us?" Lance asked.   


Pidge looked at one of her panels. "It was a one way transmission."  


That made them all feel a little better.   


"So, wait. If he's really a Prince then... Zarkon has a son?" Hunk questioned.   


"He doesn't look like a normal Galra. We can't be sure he's telling the truth," Lance said skeptically.   


Pidge thought for a moment. "If he really is Zarkon's son, then Zarkon would have to be alive for him to still be a Prince, right?"  


"We have to go back to the Castle. Allura might know something about him and we should get out of here," Hunk insisted.   


"He said that if we had friendly intentions we could trade with them. All we'd have to do is make sure we aren't recognized," Lance said while looking at Hunk through their visual feed.   


"That might work if we had brought a shuttle craft, but we're in the lions, Lance. They're a dead give away. We can't go along with what that guy wants, but we could stay and liberate the planet," Pidge started scanning for Galran bases on the surface.   


"No, we're not prepared for this. We need to go back. That planet doesn't look like any Galra occupied world we've seen. I can't find anything significant with a Galra signal and there aren't any Galran ships in the vicinity," Hunk disagreed.   


The Prince reappeared on their screens. "Your hesitancy makes you appear suspicious. Either come into orbit or leave. This is your final warning," and he disappeared again.   


"Okay, we're leaving now," Hunk started flying back toward the Castle.   


"But the people on this planet need us! Hunk! You can't leave!" Pidge stayed in place.   


"I think I agree with Hunk now," Lance touched her shoulder. This time she actually let him. "We would need a plan and we need to figure out who this guy really is. If he's the Prince we could end up with a lot of Galra coming to his defense."  


"Fine," Pidge said begrudgingly. "We'll leave people we're supposed to be helping." She pointed Green away from the planet and sped her after Yellow.   


"Are any ships following us?" Lance asked.   


"No," Pidge sounded slightly surprised. They heard Hunk sigh in relief.   


Lance watched Pidge for a while. She was ignoring his gaze and they both knew it.   


"Pidge, I'm sorry," he said again.   


"I know," she replied. She was holding a grudge but it sounded reluctant, like she wouldn't be able to keep it up for much longer. Lance decided to leave it at that for now.   


"Hunk, I'm sorry to you too," he said toward the screen even though Hunk's face wasn't on it.   


"It's alright Lance. I forgave you the moment you finally told us what's going on. You'll always be my best friend."  


Lance smiled even though his gut was wrenching. Hunk had a way of always making him smile. "Thanks buddy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter came out a lot later than I had planned. I've been having car trouble while I'm in the process of trying to move so I haven't had nearly as much time to write. This chapter actually went through a couple iterations too until I was satisfied enough to post it. I'm happy with it now though and I don't think it would have been the same had I not had issues that pushed my writing back. I have to look on the bright side!


	8. Falling Down

"Agh! I hate the Jaarans!" the Princess of Altea came storming into the study of the Royal Castle. In the walls were stored thousands of chips that could be inserted into the data port of any of the holographic display tables. Her governess put down her handheld device used to sort through them at the Princess's intrusion.   


"Hate them? I heard your diplomatic meeting with them was successful," the older Altean woman watched as Allura huffed angrily and sat in one of the chairs.   


"It was, no thanks to them! They threatened to go to war at every little thing! They're war mongering fools!" she expressed.   


Her governess gave her a shrewd look but Allura refused to look back at her. Taking none of this, she swiftly pivoted Allura's chair and then dumped her out of it with no effort at all. Allura yelped as she caught herself on her hands and knees. She quickly stood and turned around to face her assailant with fire in her eyes.   


"Now, Princess, how could you say that about a people you have just met? Your job is not to judge them but to welcome them into our ring of trade and to encourage them towards peaceful associations."   


"I did my job!" she dusted off the folds of her purple dress indignantly. "But I don't trust them! And I don't understand why my father would want them associating with us! Altea may not have an active militia, but they should know that we still train our populous!"   


"Princess Allura, you have no idea what those people may have gone through. Perhaps they aren't so quick to trust foreign species because they've been attacked in the past. Perhaps they've been attacked many times and have been taken advantage of. You cannot expect everyone to share your own world view. You must strive towards understanding first and to find common ground, however small. That is the basis for changing someone's mind and the basis for changing your own."

  


"Tell me one more time what he said," Allura requested. She was hunched over the table and leaning heavily on her elbows.   


"He's the Prince of the Galran Empire, the planet is under his protection, if we're friendly we can stay, if not he'll destroy us," Hunk listed off for her.   


"I really don't get it," Allura expressed. "Why would any Galra, especially if he is the Prince, 'protect' one of their conquered planets? I understand protecting it from being freed but it sounds like he's implying that he _cares_ about the planet."  


"Well he didn't look entirely Galran. He could have been half whatever the people on that planet were. It's really hard for me to guess what he's mixed with." Hunk and Pidge both agreed with Lance on that one. It could be really difficult to distinguish between features that they weren't as used to seeing. All aliens looked weird but how one weirdness was different from another weirdness was hard to extrapolate.   


"Was there a Prince when you were growing up?" Pidge asked.   


"None that I can recall. Unless he had a son in secret but as Emperor that seems unlikely."  


"Really? Because in Earth's history there are plenty of examples of kings having secret children, especially if the child isn't the queen's," Pidge remarked.   


"If you recall, Princess, Zarkon's wife was Altean," Coran reminded.   


"What?!" the others all exclaimed.   


"Now that I think about it, he totally looks Altean! Right?" Lance looked to Pidge and Hunk.   


They nodded their heads as they saw it too.   


"Right, the pointy ears, the smooth skin, the... other Altean-ness," Hunk agreed. Still hard to articulate it though.   


"I don't think that's possible," Allura regained their attention. "When I was growing up, there were a number of Altean-Galran couples, but none had ever conceived a child together. Alteans and the Galra are genetically too different."  


"Are you sure about that? Were there any studies done comparing DNA?" Pidge pressed.   


"I... really don't remember," Allura kept glancing at Pidge's scrutinizing look and then glancing away like she felt cornered. "Besides, there's no way his wife could have lived this long so if he does have a son, it was with someone else."  


"We don't know how Zarkon lived this long, the same thing could have happened to his wife," Pidge argued.   


Allura hesitated before shaking her head. "I still don't think so."  


Pidge narrowed her eyes. "You know what I think? I think you won't consider the possibility because you don't want the only other Altean left in the universe to be half Galra."  


Uh-oh. Pidge was definitely still mad from earlier and now she was taking it out on Allura, who also didn't tell her about Shiro's fate. Hunk and Lance made quick eye contact and tried to convey a plan to each other of how to get Pidge to stop while smoothing things over with Allura. Hunk was panicking and Lance was about halfway there with him.   


Allura's eyes flashed and she went to stand up in her anger but Keith placed his hand on her shoulder from behind her. "Hey," he kept her from getting up.   


Lance didn't know why he hadn't noticed before, Keith often leaned against a wall instead of sitting with them, but this time he had been leaning on the back of Allura's chair. It was like the whole room took notice of that at once when Allura turned her head to look up at him.   


Keith didn't say anything else to her, nor did he get onto Pidge for provoking her, all he did was give her a meaningful look that no one else in the room understood.   


Allura seemed to understand though. Her expression softened and she looked more ashamed than angry. "You're right," she told him quietly before turning back to the others.   


Allura took a deep breath, presumably to calm herself down, and Lance would have been glad that the conflict was resolving itself if he could focus on anything other than Keith's hand on Allura's shoulder that wasn't moving off. It was the hand that was still bandaged, the hand Keith had cut on his own knife because Lance had taken it away from him. Thoughts and feelings swirled around each other, fighting and getting mixed up, all beginning and ending with, _what the hell is going on?!_  


Hunk and Coran both noticed where Lance was staring.   


"Fine," Allura conceded. "I won't rule it out as a possibility."  


Pidge's spice calmed down as well.   


"Perhaps instead of discussing the origins of this Prince, we should discuss what to do about him," Coran cut in to make sure nothing further would happen between the two strong willed young ladies.   


"Coran is right," Allura let it go. Pidge crossed her arms, a sign that she wouldn't apologize anyway. "I think at this point we should start acting like Zarkon is still alive. Even if we can't confirm this, I agree with Pidge's earlier assessment, for this Prince to have not succeeded the throne, the Galra must still have an Emperor."  


"So then what are we doing about it?" Pidge asked.   


Allura's intensity returned, but for a different reason. "This 'Prince' could be an opportunity for us. If we capture him, we'd have leverage against Zarkon."  


"Woah, woah, woah," Hunk objected. "You're talking about kidnapping, right? Since when do we do stuff like that? Aren't we supposed to be the good guys in this?"  


"It's not that bad, it's not like we're going to torture him, Hunk," Pidge remarked too casually for Hunk's comfort.   


"You were ready to fight Allura five seconds ago and now you're agreeing with her?!" Hunk was flabbergasted.   


"Well, I think she's right about this one," Pidge argued back.   


"What?!" Hunk turned to Keith since he had diffused the situation between Pidge and Allura just prior. "Keith?" he pleaded.   


Keith looked between Hunk and Pidge. He took a few seconds to think. "If it works," Keith shrugged.   


"You can't be serious," Hunk's frown got worse as he was beginning to loose hope.   


"If it has the chance to work, I'll agree with Allura." Allura looked over her shoulder to smile at Keith.   


Hunk thought for a moment about reminding everyone that Shiro would definitely not approve of this plan, but saying something like that could really only make things worse right now. Instead, he turned to Lance and saw that he was still glaring at Keith's hand like it was a great offense to him personally.   


"Lance?" Hunk asked, hoping that he had been paying attention to what they were talking about.   


"I don't like it," Lance responded immediately. He looked Keith straight in the eye. "I don't think we should try becoming something we're not."  


Keith looked startled by him and reflexively removed his hand from Allura as he took a step back. It looked to Hunk like he hadn't even made the connection that Lance had been staring as his hand at all. There was a momentary flash of hurt on Keith's face before he was glaring back at Lance with his fists balled at his sides. Did Lance's words have a double meaning to Lance? Did Lance's words have a double meaning to Keith? No one in the room, not even the two in question, could tell.   


"Lance. As the paladins of Voltron, your job is to defend the universe. The Prince of the Galran Empire surely has committed countless atrocities and we must bring him to justice," Allura declared fiercely.   


Lance's glare turned on Allura to the surprise of everyone. "You don't know what he has and hasn't done. We only just found out about him! If he's done all of that, why haven't we heard about him before? That planet we went to didn't look occupied, it looked like it was just him and the regular inhabitants."  


"Do you really think that the son of Zarkon could be innocently stopping by planets and browsing their street markets?!"   


Lance gave a fake chuckle and looked back to Keith. "You see what she's trying to do? She just wants revenge and she'll go through any Galra to get it!"  


Everyone's eyes widened in shock.   


"Okay, Lance, you're not helping!" Hunk got up and went to Lance, pulling him out of his chair and turning him away from the others to get him to stop glaring at the other side of the table. Hunk kept him in his arms so that he couldn't escape but Lance complied easily enough. Keith turned away as well letting his glare hit the floor so that it wasn't liable to kill Lance.   


"Keith," Allura had turned around in her chair to grab his hand and pull him back closer to her. He shook away her touch and remained facing away.   


Hunk then looked to the only person left who might be able to rectify this situation. "Coran, please tell me what you think," he begged.   


Coran was looking at Lance with a great deal of concern. He inhaled sharply making his orange mustache twitch but fall perfectly back into place afterward. "Well... Kidnapping of important personnel is allowed in the Altean doctrines of war. However, considering everyone's heightened emotional states, I do have to call into question the morality of this."   


Hunk breathed a sigh of relief.   


Coran looked to the Princess and Keith. "Revenge is a hidden enemy. It lurks in quiet corners of your chest, and just when you think you've caught it, it consumes your heart." He looked to Pidge. "Rage breeds counterproductiveness. The more you let your rage brew, the more problems you set in your own path." He looked to Hunk as he finished quoting Altean proverbs. "Always strive to do everything for the right reason. All will be accounted for. Every last deed. Until there is never a deed that wasn't done."  


Recognizing the quote, Lance and Keith both reacted. Lance turned in Hunk's arm to watch Coran's face, looking to decipher the proverb, whereas Keith's shoulders relaxed and Allura finally got a hold of his wrist to pull him to her side.   


The paladins were all silent for a while. What were they supposed to say to that? Hunk was hoping this would change half of their minds. He looked at Pidge. She had her head down and seemed to be thinking things over again.   


"I understand the concern, but I think we need to do this. We know where the Prince is and the Galra aren't expecting us to attack. We won't have another opportunity like this again," Allura spoke up.   


"But what if he really hasn't done anything wrong? What if he's not involved in the war?" Hunk persisted.   


"We won't hurt him. We'll just capture him and hold him to get Zarkon to come out of hiding. And if we can get any sort of information from him, imagine how much that would help our war effort," Allura explained.   


"Half your paladins don't like it, Princess. We can't do it if we don't agree," Lance's glare was back on her again.   


"Well then, what do you suggest we do?! The last time we fought Zarkon, one of us didn't make it! We need an advantage or something like that could happen again! And it's not just our lives I'm worried about, every day we wait instead of doing something, the Galra take more ground! This is the best opportunity we've gotten so far and you think it's okay for us to waste it?!" Allura shouted, glaring back at him.   


Allura looked like she was ready to yell more and Lance was ready to shout back but Keith stopped them both when he thought of something.   


"Wait," he interrupted. "The Blade of Marmora have been fighting Zarkon and keeping track of information since the war started. We can ask them what they know about the Prince and then we can decide what to do about him. They might be able to help us repair the Castle as well. I say we ask for their help." He turned to Allura to speak directly to her, "There are only six of us, we need more allies than the Blade to win a war of this scale."  


Allura mulled over her response, twisting her tongue in the inside of her mouth. "That seems reasonable," she relented.   


Keith looked over at Lance with a scowl and a question in his eyes.   


Lance held Keith's stare until the pressure was too much. "Fine!" he threw his hands up. "We'll do whatever you say, oh great leader!" he said with spite dripping in sarcasm.   


Keith's face very clearly showed hurt this time.   


"Lance! What's your deal?!" Pidge shouted at him.   


"Don't act like you didn't do the same thing to Allura!" he rounded on Pidge.   


"Okay! Nope! We're not doing this!" Hunk grabbed Lance more firmly. "This is not how a team should act, so this meeting is over! We can regroup once everyone's calm and Coran has contacted the Blade!"  


"What do you mean once Coran has contacted the Blade? Keith and I should—" Allura started to argue.   


"Nope! The only one of us who can look at anything objectively right now is Coran! That goes for me too, so fair is fair, meeting over!" Hunk started to pull Lance toward the door.   


"Wait a minute! You can't just end a meeting on your own!" Lance started to protest, fighting to stay in the room.   


Hunk picked Lance up and carried him forcefully to the door.   


" _Put me down, Hunk!_ You're going to let them get away with their _stupid_ plan!" Lance squirmed for all he was worth.   


"No, it's over," he said with finality. "You guys too!" he looked back at the rest of them. "Everyone out!" and he left the room with Lance trapped over his shoulder.   


They heard Lance's shouting get quieter as they got further away.   


"I have to agree with Hunk on this one, Princess," Coran stood from his chair to her right. "The three of you should also leave and get space from each other."  


"Yeah, I was going to leave anyway," Pidge stood and headed straight for the door. She stomped as she went, leaving Allura with her heckles raised when Pidge ignored her as she passed by.   


"Fine." Allura stood swiftly and grabbed Keith's hand. "Come on, Keith."  


She barely took a single step before Coran was blocking her path. "No," he told her. "You and Keith should be separated too. For you to clear your mind you must be alone."  


Allura gave Coran and pleading look. She would not ask him for what she wanted outright, but all she needed was for him to step aside.   


Keith suddenly swiped his hand away from hers. "That's fine. It's easier to be alone anyway," he said with his eyes on the floor. He walked around them both and left without looking back.   


Allura watched him go with sad shimmering eyes but she couldn't ask him to wait, especially not with Coran there. Now alone, face to face with the man her father had entrusted to protect her, her feelings started slipping out, pouring down her face in rivulets carving out real-estate along the way.   


"Alright then. I'll go," she nodded and pushed past Coran.   


"If Keith went to the training deck, you'll have to go somewhere else," he called to her.   


She stopped in her tracks.   


Coran sighed softly, deciding he'd talk to her back of need be. "Princess, you're trying to lead the team when you're not meant to. You need to let the one who is step up on his own."  


"But Keith agreed with me," she said stiffly.   


"But would he have come up with the same plan had you not suggested it so forcefully?"  


Allura didn't answer.   


"Have you noticed that when no one else steps up, Keith does? He's always had these qualities but they've been hidden from us by Keith's willing submission to Shiro. Keith submitted to Shiro and therefore the others did. If you were to allow Keith to lead you instead of trying to lead Keith yourself, then perhaps the others, and more significantly Lance, would allow the same. As long as you remain stubborn, Keith cannot take his place and this team will continue into chaos."  


Allura's shoulders stiffened into wound knots. Coran waited, knowing that she was thinking.   


She gathered her dress and briskly left through the door. Coran sighed again, weary this time. It would take more time than that for that one to face herself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy! Maybe they need some group therapy. I wonder if they could find someone to help with that in space.


	9. Respite

"Found you!" Lance startled Keith out of his thoughts.   


After getting bored in his room, Keith had taken to wandering about the ship hours ago, avoiding all the common areas he might find one of the others lurking and sticking to the smaller hallways with lights that were rarely turned on. His feet had brought him to the observation deck, a room devoid of anything but a huge window that bubbled in place of the outer wall. It was so large he couldn't take in all the pinpricks of light at once. It was perfect.   


He had lay there picking points in the sky and imagining what it might be like to be there. Take the brightest blue light at the far right of the window. Blue stars tended to be giants with hardly any metals, which in this case just means any elements other than hydrogen and helium. If a star like that has any planets around it, they're more than likely all gas giants. They had never been to any gas giants before, they just pass them by. He wondered if that was because nothing could live in that type of atmosphere with such high gravity or if life there was just so different it was pointless to try interacting with them. He imagined enormous, hulking creatures, not quite like ocean creatures, not quite like birds, swimming through thick, billowing clouds. Maybe the storms would be too loud, so they'd find another way to communicate with each other. They could be bio-luminescent, able to produce light at a wavelength that can pierce through layers of tan and yellow gases.   


He and Shiro used to play this game all the time back before Shiro left for his first mission. He never failed to impress Keith with new space trivia, and Keith learned even if he didn't share interest in the same way. Shiro always made space into a place of pure wonder and awe.   


So, Keith was just a bit perturbed when Lance barged in and interrupted his sentimentality. "I thought Hunk had you restrained," he commented.   


"Unfortunately for you, I escaped Hunk hours ago!"  


"Coran wants all of us to stay separated," he reminded, not bothering to move from his place basking in the center of his view of the heavens.   


"Yeah, well I don't give a shit!" Lance yelled, looming over him with his fists on his hips.   


Keith sat up and scooted around, cross-legged to face Lance. "Can we not do this right now?"  


"Do what?!"  


"This!" Keith gestured between the two of them. "You always do this!"  


" _Do what?!_ " Lance repeated.   


Keith stood so that they were almost at eye level. "Whenever I think we're getting along, whenever I think we might actually be friends, whenever I start to fell _happy_ , you have to pretend like nothing positive ever happened between us, or you have to get mad for no reason like today!"  


"I— I haven't done something like that!" he blabbered.   


"Oh really?" Keith raised an eyebrow in challenge. "'Cause I can make a list."  


"No you can't—" Lance started to deny.   


"Remember that time I saved Shiro but then you showed up and started arguing about who was saving him? I didn't even know who you were back then!"  


"But—"  


"That time after Sendak almost killed you. I was worried and then relieved that you were okay, but as soon as you were healed you pretended not to remember anything! You don't care about how I feel, you only care about maintaining this boundary between us that you invented!"  


"I do care about how you feel—"  


Keith interrupted again. "Or take anytime I've saved you or you've saved me in battle. No matter what, nothing really changes, no progress can be made, because you treat them like points on a score board!"  


"You treat them that way too!" Lance protested.   


"Only because that's the only thing you let me treat them as! Anytime I try to do anything else you find some way to ignore it or turn it into an argument or you just pick a fight with me! If you hate me, then why not just leave me alone? Wouldn't that be better for the both of us?"  


Lance had the gall to looked shocked. "I— I don't _hate_ you," Lance spoke like it was a confession.   


After a track record like theirs, how was Keith supposed to believe him?   


"Then why are you here doing our same routine all over again? You yell at me so that I'll yell at you! How else would we maintain the status quo?" he mocked.   


"This isn't like those times!" Lance burst out.   


"Really?" Keith crossed his arms in doubt. "Then what is this about?"  


Lance's face went deadly serious and the furrow in his brow let Keith know that this was what he was pissed about. "What's going on between you and Allura?"  


No way. Keith had enough foresight not to look outwardly shocked, he only blinked at Lance. Inside, it took him a while to reprocess what he thought he'd just heard. Turning it over in his head only led him to one conclusion. _What the hell?_  


"Seriously?!" Keith shouted. "All of this is because you're jealous!"  


"What?! I'm not jealous!" Lance looked confused for a split second but it was quickly covered with defensiveness.   


"You like Allura, right?" Keith got straight to the point.   


"Yes!" Lance answered so quickly that it made Keith suspicious. But everyone on the ship knew Lance liked Allura, so he dismissed the strange feeling without putting anymore thought into it.   


"Well then, you've got nothing to be jealous of. Allura asked me to be her friend. _Just friends_." he emphasized. "Besides, I've never felt that way about anyone, so there's no need to get nervous."  


"Wait!" Lance held up a hand to stop him. "You've never had a crush on anyone? Not in your entire life?"  


Oh, why did Lance have to ask about that? Why did he always have to be so curious? Topics like this made Keith uncomfortable, let alone discussing them with Lance. But Keith hadn't told the whole truth and now that he was being asked directly... He hated lying.   


"There... was a time when I thought I might be able to feel that way about someone, but in the end, I couldn't," he explained with caution.   


Lance looked Keith up and down and eyed him like he was trying to figure Keith out. Keith really didn't want Lance to figure anything out. At all. Ever.   


"Okay. Well, I've been trying to tell you, that's not what this is about." Keith felt instant relief and surprise when Lance dropped that so quickly. He had expected Lance to pester him for more details like he did when Pidge or Hunk wouldn't readily confess something to him.   


"Has Allura apologized to you?" Lance continued with that same tight expression back on his face.   


"What?" was all Keith could say.   


"Has she apologized to you?" Lance repeated.   


"For what?"  


"For the way she treated you, obviously!" Lance burst with a fury and frustration that was venomous in nature. It made Keith recoil. He had a pretty good idea what Lance meant now, but this was not something he wanted to discuss with anyone.   


Shying from Lance's blazing eyes, he turned away to stare at the blackest void swallowing up the stars. "You don't have to worry about that," he said softly, just barely above a whisper.   


"Of course I do!" Lance refused to simmer.   


"But she didn't _do_ anything."  


"Yes she did! As soon as she found out you were part Galra, she would hardly look at you! She acted like you weren't in the room and she'd talk directly to everyone but you unless it was absolutely necessary! You were a paladin the same as us, you were supposed to be her friend the same as us, but she treated you with suspicion and acted like you were a threat!" he revealed what Keith already knew they were truly talking about. But Keith had long since arrived at a conclusion on this topic.   


"So what?" he asked. "I already told you, Allura and I are friends now. Real friends. So it doesn't matter what she did or didn't do before."  


" _Yes it does!_ " Lance argued back, trying hard to convince Keith. "You're letting her get away with it!"  


"If this has been bothering you this whole time, why haven't you said anything before now?! Why get mad about it now after acting like everything was normal up to this point?!" Keith yelled at Lance's dim reflection in the window. He wasn't sure if Lance had noticed his gaze. He appeared to be looking at Keith's back and he seemed to finally fizzle out.   


"I thought that if you didn't say anything, Shiro would. Shiro always took care of you especially, so I didn't think he'd let something like this go. I thought it wasn't my place to say anything, but now that Shiro isn't... here," he sounded way more gentle, "I can't let it go."  


With that, Keith couldn't really be angry. Recently, it was hard for him to maintain anger for very long. He just felt... empty. He focused his eyes back on the darkness that reached and stretched and reached.   


"Shiro never said anything," he began to admit. "And neither did I because... maybe Allura was right to be wary of me. Maybe this part of me that I can never seem to control is inherited. Maybe I'll never control it, can't control it."  


There was a moment of silence and then, "What?!" Lance grabbed Keith by the shoulders and forced him to turn around to look at Lance. "You can't believe that's true! You of all people should know that isn't true! Remember Ulaz? He helped Shiro escape because he knew what the Empire was doing was wrong! When we met him you chose to trust him before most of us did and you were right! He sacrificed himself to save us! And Thace! He spent years undercover to give the rebellion information and he died just to give us the chance to defeat Zarkon! And Kolivan runs an entire organization of thousands of Galra dedicated to ending Zarkon's reign of oppression. The only reason he and Allura were able to forge an alliance was because of you!" Lance implored.   


Keith had to look away, he cowered in shame at the earnestness in those dark blue eyes. It was too much for him.   


"Lance, I'd willing die if it meant the rest of you would live. I'd die if it meant Shiro could be brought back to life. Maybe that's an inherited trait too."  


"Keith!" Lance moved his hands from Keith's shoulders to his upper arms and squeezed them so hard it hurt. "No matter what, you can't sacrifice yourself! We'll always find another way, so don't even think about it!"  


"But isn't that what we're supposed to do? As Voltron we're supposed to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the universe. Isn't it inevitable?" he argued back with no heart.   


"No, it's not! You— we all matter! We can't forget about our own lives for the sake of everyone else's! Keith, we have a responsibility to stay alive so that we can keep fighting for peace. Every life is important for a rebellion. Our first mission is to stay alive, all other missions come second. We'll find a way, no matter what," he asserted.   


It was in moments like this when Keith missed Shiro the most. If Shiro had said these words to him, then maybe he could believe them, whether they were really true or not. He wanted to believe Lance, but there was something in the way. Something that kept his blood from flowing properly, that kept the joy of life from chasing his veins and returning to his heart.   


"I don't know..." he trailed off. He didn't even know how to finish what he wanted to say.   


"Keith," Lance called again, grabbing his face to force him to look at Lance. "Just say that you'll find a way," he urged.   


Keith looked from one eye to the other trying to understand if there was any hidden meaning. Lance wasn't always honest with him, so it could be hard to see what Lance really wanted. This time though, Keith was sure Lance was genuine.   


"Fine." Lance won this time. Keith was hopeless to fight him now.   


Lance squinted and studied Keith's face, probably trying to tell if Keith had just lied. Keith hated lying.   


"Good," Lance gave a nod, taking Keith at his word. Lance released Keith's face and took a step back, giving them both some space. Lance looked like he wanted to say something more but he wasn't speaking.   


"What?" Keith asked.   


Lance still looked hesitant and opened his mouth a few times before starting. "I still say Allura needs to apologize to you."  


Keith gave an annoyed sigh. "Why should she?"  


"Because if you let her get away with it, she won't change!"  


"She has changed! She asked me if we could be friends and I said yes because I'd actually like a friend for once!"  


"She has not! You saw how she reacted to finding out the Galra have a Prince!" Lance completely ignored the last part of what Keith had said.   


"Is it really that unreasonable for her to be cautious? She agreed to wait until we found out more information about him!"  


"Aghhh!" Lance made an exasperated sound. "Why do you keep defending her?! She doesn't deserve it!"  


"She didn't deserve what you and Pidge said to her! And yet she didn't say anything cruel back!"  


"That's only because you kept stopping her!"  


"Exactly! She listened to _me_!"  


Lance stopped for a second making Keith thinking he had proven his point to him. A little less angry, a little more restrained, Lance tried again, "She makes exceptions for you and the Blade, but her actions prove she still hates all Galra broadly." Lance sighed a very weary sigh, like he was about to do something really difficult. "Please, Keith," he asked in a tight sort of way.   


Keith didn't know how to respond. He couldn't remember if Lance had ever said please to him before. If he had, it wasn't anything like this. He couldn't figure out why this was so important to Lance. Why did it matter if it didn't affect Lance directly? Lance wasn't part Galra, he had nothing to worry about. It just didn't make sense.   


"I'll think about it," Keith yielded as much as he could.   


Lance didn't look quite satisfied but he seemed to conclude correctly that that was all he would get from Keith. He sighed again. "Fine."  


There was a stretching silence between them. Lance looked like he felt awkward now that there wasn't something to fight about. If this moment truly were awkward, it was only so for Lance, Keith didn't care enough about what other people thought to feel awkward. Keith watched Lance fidget as he thought about asking him to leave. If they weren't going to keep talking, if Lance left he wouldn't have to feel awkward anymore.   


"I don't hate you," Lance said suddenly.   


Ah. "I know." Keith could tell that much by now. He was sure Lance meant what he had said. But there was still something he wondered. "Do you hate Allura?" he dared to ask.   


"Of course, not," Lance answered easily and calmly. "I can like someone and not like everything they do," he explained.   


Wow. Lance was a lot less black and white than Keith had thought. There was more to him, he was complex. Keith might not understand him still, but he gave Lance more credit in his own mind.   


There was another silence but Lance looked less uncomfortable. He took in the view behind Keith while Keith continued to stare at him, analyzing and cataloging all of his features.   


"Have you eaten anything?" Lance surprised Keith by asking.   


"Not yet."  


"Wanna go to the kitchen with me?"   


Now Keith was doubly surprised. "You willing to bet Hunk's not gonna be there?"  


"No, he probably will be," Lance looked to Keith with a grin. "If he is, we can take whatever he's cooking and run for it."  


Keith blinked. "How is it that this kind of behavior makes you friends?"  


Lance smirked. "You know nothing of social norms." He pointed to the door. "You coming?"  


"Sure," Keith shrugged as he went on ahead of Lance.   


Lance jogged to fall in step beside him. They had a long walk to the kitchen as it was almost directly opposite the observation deck and they silently agreed to listen for anyone else roaming about the Castle once they started getting closer to the main areas. After a while though, Keith noticed Lance starting to fidget with his fingers again. He was starting to figure out that that meant Lance either wanted to say something and didn't know how to say it, or that he wanted to say something but couldn't think of anything to say.   


Still, Keith was so mesmerized by Lance's fingers tapping each other in turn, crossing each other, or separating and coming back together one at a time that he forgot Lance would probably actually say something.   


"So, is red actually your favorite color?"  


"What?"  


"Well, I was thinking about how even though I'm the blue paladin, my favorite color isn't actually blue. You seem kind of like a red person, your jacket is red. But then I thought that could be just because you look good in red, which doesn't necessitate it being your favorite. I also thought you could like black since you have that whole lone wolf bad boy vibe going on."  


Lance always managed to baffle Keith.   


"I thought for sure your favorite would be blue," he said instead of answering Lance's question. "Aren't you always talking about how much you miss the ocean?"  


Lance grinned and raised an eyebrow. "So you do listen to my conversations with Pidge and Hunk when we're all in the same room. I couldn't tell since you never say anything, you just lean against a wall."  


"So?" Keith defended even though he wasn't sure he needed to.   


"That means you know way more about me than I do about you."  


"So what?"  


"So, answer the question. Is your favorite color red?" Lance asked again.   


"No."  


"And?" Lance tried to get more from him.   


"What's your favorite color if it isn't blue?" he dodged again.   


Lance seemed a bit annoyed but took it in stride and demonstrated what he wanted from Keith like it was easy. "It's green. The Garrison is in the middle of a desert and I was used to having green plants everywhere all year round. My parents house is surround by green trees, green bushes, green grass, and for whatever reason, my mom insisted on painting the house green. When I think of green, I picture that house and I'm home. There's no where else in the entire universe with that house. That house means more to me than even the ocean." He looked to Keith with challenge in his eyes. "So? Color."  


Keith decided to just go for it. "Brown."  


Lance stopped in his tracks and stared at Keith with wide circles for eyes. "Are you color blind?"  


"No!" Keith felt offended.   


"Are you positive?" he asked dubiously.   


"I also liked purple but... now I feel a little weird about that," Keith admitted.   


"Purple... purple's nice. But why brown?"  


"This is ridiculous!" Keith grumbled, taking off back down the hall.   


"You're ridiculous!" Lance sounded all too amused, catching up to Keith. Then, "Hey, race you to the kitchen!"  


"On!" Keith sprinted ahead, leaving Lance behind as quickly as he could.   


Lance chased after him. "Wait! I didn't say go!" he called as he tried to catch up.   


"Too late!" Keith laughed and oh, how long had it been since he had last laughed? It opened up his chest and he suddenly felt like he hadn't been breathing properly for months. What surprised him most though was when he heard an echoing laugh from Lance just at his heels.   


As Lance caught his arm they neared the kitchen doors and Keith had to fight to keep Lance from pulling him back. Lance kept laughing and pulling and trying to trip him until they were stalled right in front of the doors in what was now and grappling match on the floor. Keith was enjoying every minute of it, to the point where he couldn't help the smile on his face. This was the type of thing he knew how to handle, less talk, more action. This was what helped him understand people.   


Suddenly they were interrupted as Allura's voice came over the Castle's speakers. "Paladins! To the bridge! We're going after the Prince."  


They looked at each other with serious expressions. Lance's face looked strangely grim, but when Keith met his eyes, he couldn't help feeling a little that way himself.   


Never a moment's rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took me forever guys! I had been writing this chapter on my phone and I was almost finished when my phone glitched and deleted the chapter... It took me quite a while to rewrite it because I was a bit demoralized and then I actually moved. At least that's done now! But I actually think this chapter turned out better than it was the first time, which was my goal. 
> 
> Also, Lance's birthday was yesterday on my side of the world, so happy birthday to Lance! This chapter kind of works for his birthday, Lance is a good guy.


	10. The Right Thing

Lance snuck as quietly as he could down the stairs and through the hall to the kitchen. He knew which spots on the floor would creak if he stepped on them and where to crouch down and make himself as small as possible if anyone passed by. But no one interfered, no one showed up to stop him and he was perfectly silent on his bare feet. So, when he made it to the threshold, he saw what he had come for. On the yellow topped counter sat a perfectly ripe red and orange fruit. 

Still remembering to be cautious, he crept up to the counter slowly, watching the other entrance for moving shadows. Once he had arrived at the counter however, his attention went solely to how to get to the fruit. He couldn't actually see over the countertop as his brows and above were all that cleared it. 

He got on his tiptoes and tried reaching one arm as far across the cold surface as he could get it, stretching his fingers out and feeling for anything. It wasn't enough. He stepped back a bit and jumped to see if he had the location right. It was still there, looking juicy and delicious. 

He decided on a different tactic. He went over to the kitchen table to get one of the chairs. The chairs were also too big for him and when he tried lifting one he realized that wood is actually quite heavy. He thought for a moment before ducking under the table to get to the other side of the chair so that he could push it toward its destination.   


He put his hands against the side of the seat and put his weight into it. The chair squeaked into motion at his force, something under one of the legs having scratched the hardwood floor. Lance immediately stopped, his eyes going as big as saucers as he froze in place and listened with his heart pounding.   


After waiting for nearly a full minute, he concluded that no one must have heard him. As such, he scooted the chair the rest of the way to the counter, heedless of the line he was leaving along the way.   


Just as he had climbed up onto the chair and retrieved his prize, there was a knock on what must have been the front door to the house, scaring him out of his skin.   


Lance stayed where he was on the chair, unable to move as there was movement through the house and the front door was opened. He heard his father greet some people and ask them to come in and make themselves comfortable. He heard his mother leading them to the other side of the house and offering them drinks and food. As they walked by, Lance made eye contact with one of two large men he had never seen before.   


"Hey, what's the kid doing here?" he asked in a gruff and irritated voice. Lance felt himself panicking but he still couldn't move.   


"Mijito!" his mother spotted him and her face went from shocked to angry.   


His father ushered the men to keep going and Lance felt a little bit of relief when he could no longer see them.   


"What are you—" she stopped herself mid-sentence in her anger and turned to call up the stairs. "Marco!"  


"What is it, mamá?" Marco called back.  


"Come get your brother and put him back in bed!" she ordered.   


A door opened upstairs and footsteps tapped rhythmically as they descended the staircase.   


"I can't believe you're still awake! You should have been asleep an hour ago!" she lectured him with her hands on her hips. "And what are you doing standing on a chair?! What were you getting into?!"  


Marco came into the kitchen and grinned at Lance the way he always did, like nothing could ever go wrong. "It's alright, mamá. I've got this," he told her in his soft and smooth voice.   


He came to Lance and scooped him up into his arms and then placed him on one of his hips. He grabbed the chair by its back with his other hand and lifted it with ease to put it back in place at the table.   


"And make sure Verónica is getting ready for bed now, she should also go to sleep!" she huffed as he carried Lance past her, stopping to kiss her cheek along the way.   


"Don't worry, mamá. They'll be asleep before you know it," he reassured her.   


Their mother's whole demeanor changed and she sighed like she was tired but thankful. "Ay, mijo, you'll be such a good father someday. You better give me lots of grandchildren!" she insisted.   


Marco laughed in a warm and calming way. "If you say so, how could I refuse?" he grinned.   


"Hey!" she stopped him from going further. "I said someday, not today, got it?"  


Lance circled his arms more securely around his oldest brother's neck and buried his face into Marco's shoulder. Marco pat his back and gave his mother a smile once more. "Wouldn't dream of it!"  


Marco carried Lance up the stairs and to his room. He stopped in front of the door and whispered to Lance who was still clinging to him, "You better hope mamá doesn't notice that scratch before I have a chance to fix it."  


Lance couldn't help the smile on his face and he giggled into Marco's neck. He absolutely loved Marco. Whereas his other older brother and sister would often tell on him if he did anything of offense, Marco would protect him and swear he did nothing wrong with his dying breath.   


Marco pushed the door open and they heard Verónica intake a sharp breath followed by the rustling of her covers. As soon as Lance looked over, Marco put him down, to Lance's disappointment.   


"I definitely caught you. You were reading up there weren't you," Marco pointed out as he stepped on the frame of Lance's bunk so that he could fold his arms over the frame of the top bunk.   


Verónica stayed still, pretending to be sleeping.   


"Why'd you let Lance out?" he asked. Still no response. Lance followed Marco and climbed up the ladder until he could also see his sister.   


"I know you're awake, Verónica."  


Lance pulled at her covers until they were mostly off of her but she still didn't move.   


Marco spotted her book. "I could always look at what you were reading." He went to grab the book but Verónica sprang into action and swiped it away before he managed to peek at the title. He smirked at her knowing he had caught her.   


"Marco! Just leave me alone!" she cried.   


He laughed, clearly amused. "How about this, I won't tell mamá that you've been reading books you're too young for if you go to bed and make sure Lance stays in bed too," he offered.   


"Fine!" Verónica quickly stuffed the book between the edge of her mattress and her bed frame, trying to make sure it was out of Marco's reach.  


"What were you reading?" Lance asked, having no clue at all what a 'book you're too young for' could possibly entail.   


"Nothing!" Verónica insisted to him, looking maybe just a bit embarrassed.   


Marco chuckled again and hopped down. He reached out for Lance and Lance gladly reciprocated expecting Marco to hold him again, only for Marco to just be helping him down to the floor.   


"Alright, Verónica, go brush your teeth," Marco instructed. "And Lance, back in bed." He knelt down and pulled back Lance's covers for him to get in.   


Lance started complying but spoke at the same time. "Marco, who were those men?" he asked.   


Verónica stopped halfway down the ladder, her ears perking up, and she jumped the rest of the way to the floor. "What men?"   


"Some big scary guys are in the house," Lance told her.   


Her eyes widened.   


"Now wait," Marco tried to calm them down. "They're nothing scary, they're just other Cubans like us, okay? Even you two can seem scary when you're grumpy," he poked Lance and Verónica on their foreheads. Lance giggled but Verónica frowned.   


"But who are they?" she asked.   


"It's nothing for the two of you to worry about. Mamá and papá would never let anyone in they didn't trust. So get to sleep!"   


That was enough for Lance to crawl into bed but Verónica stayed where she was stubbornly.   


"Verónica," Marco said in a warning tone. "Go brush your teeth and then get in bed."   


She lingered a moment longer before reluctantly making her way to the door. "I can't wait until I have my own room," she said under her breath.   


"What was that?" Marco asked having heard her. "You'll have to wait a long time for that one!" he laughed.  


Verónica turned with her hands on her hips and a victorious smirk on her lips. "Shows what you know! Mamá said that when I'm twelve, she'll clear out her sowing room for me!"  


Marco's usual jovial face dropped. "Wait, I'm the oldest, if anyone should get their own room, it should be me," he insisted like he really was just their brother and not their parent.   


Lance eyed the door. He could tell this would turn into a full-on argument.   


"Mamá said it's because I'm the only girl, so I should get my own room!"  


"You can get your own room when I move out," Marco changed his expression again as he thought of something. "I've still got a few years before you turn twelve, that's plenty of time for me to convince her," he said more to himself.   


"What! Marco, no!" she whined in response.   


"That's right!" Marco was back to all smiles as he picked her up and started carrying her over his shoulder toward the bathroom. She protested and made enough noise that Marco covered her mouth as he took her down the hall.   


Seeing his opportunity, Lance put the peach he had snuck under his blanket and crept to the door of his room. He looked both ways, first toward the bathroom door where he could see the light was on and then to his older brothers' room to make sure Luís wasn't about to appear because of the commotion. Coast clear enough for Lance, he tiptoed down only the top few steps of the stairs until he could see the couch the two strangers were sitting on, but not far down enough that he could see their faces. As long as he couldn't see them, they couldn't see him. He held onto the railing and tried to listen for what they were saying.   


"We can get you three more crates by Tuesday, but anymore than that..." one of the men trailed off.   


"What can you do by the end of next week?" he heard his father ask.   


"Like I said before, we have to make another run. It takes time and it takes money. We pull too much at once, you know what could happen to us," the other man took over, crossing his arms and looking closed off.   


"Sounds like they're smugglers," Lance heard whispered right next to his ear. Lance jumped, scared so badly he almost peed.   


It was Luís sitting on the top step looking down the stairs strangely.   


"What's a smuggler?" Verónica whispered as she too came to join them. They all heard Marco sigh from behind her.   


Verónica squished herself tightly behind Lance on the same step and looked through the bars trying to see their odd house guests.   


"Luís!" Marco whispered exasperatedly. He gave Luís a dirty look.   


"What?" Luís looked offended. "You think I'm wrong?"  


"No, but," Marco gestured to Lance and Verónica.   


Verónica looked back at them. "What's a smuggler?" she repeated.   


Marco put his face in his hand while Luís was eager to answer. "A smuggler is a criminal who takes drugs from one place to another to make tons of money."  


At this point in his life, Lance did not know what drugs were but he did know what a criminal was, so he had a sour feeling that drugs were no good at all.   


As Lance's eyes grew increasingly wide the more he thought about it, Verónica pulled Lance closer to her.   


"Okay, nope! Stop it!" Marco chided Luís and he came down and scooped both Lance and Verónica into his lap. The two children clung to their eldest brother. "Smugglers don't only smuggle drugs," he said pointedly at Luís. "These ones bring in food mostly, and also medical supplies."  


"Medical supplies? So drugs." Luís never could miss an opportunity to push Marco's buttons and test his patience.   


Marco huffed in an annoyed way. "Try bandages and gauze," he threw back.   


Luís held his hands up in surrender, probably only because he knew if he pushed any further, they'd start yelling and then all of them would get caught.   


The thing was, the idea of smuggling food and medicine did sound a lot less scary to Lance, but the fact that they were still criminals kept him uneasy. You could get in really big trouble for being a criminal if you got caught, that much Lance knew. So if his parents got caught asking them all of these questions he didn't understand completely, what would happen to them? Would they be criminals too?  


He leaned his head back on Marco's chest and looked up at his beloved brother, the only sibling of his he knew would never lie to him. "Marco, why are mamá and papá asking the smugglers to get stuff for them? Are mamá and papá also criminals?"  


Marco blinked down at Lance with a complicated expression that furrowed his brows and bit his lip. He inhaled as if about to speak but then stopped himself. He looked away from Lance's imploring blue eyes before starting again.   


"Listen, some things are difficult to explain simply. Mamá and papá are trying to do what's best for our community. Not everyone has a good job like papá. Food is expensive and a lot of families can't always feed themselves." He took a breath and turned back to Lance. "Papá says that to be a good man you have to help others. He says that risking your own safety for the sake of others is how you become an adult. They're not doing this for selfish reasons. They're doing this so that the kids you play with down the street have something to eat and so that the abuela across from us who likes to give you candy, can get better if she gets sick. Sometimes doing the right thing can be a crime. And sometimes we have to do the right thing even if it's dangerous."  


Those words flickered into Lance's heart as he set them to memory. He'd remember those words as they were branded on his chest. He'd remember the way Marco's lips moved as he said them, the inflections in his voice, serious and with a hint of passion hidden behind the careful calm he tried to display.   


Lance was no longer afraid of the grizzly looking men in his living room, nor was he afraid for himself as he thought about how he wanted to help people too, but he couldn't help the pit of anxiousness in his stomach at the thought of his parents doing something so dangerous and the same for Marco. If Marco knew what was going on, he was old enough that he could probably be helping too.   


As Marco carried him and Verónica to bed, letting his forehead be kissed and his hair ruffled by Luís, he clung to his favorite person without ever wanting to let go.   


Marco eventually peeled him off and tucked him into bed. Lance stared at the bottom of the top bunk for what felt like forever before rooting around under his covers for the peach he'd hidden there. He held it in both hands wondering for the first time where it had come from. 

Lance and Keith ran to the bridge. No more racing and laughing, both were back to frowning as they sped through the doors to find only Allura and Coran were there yet. Allura was at the helm imputing something into the console with a very bad look on her face. Coran was hovering over her and pleading with her to wait for just a tick longer.   


At the sound of the doors whooshing open Coran looked over at them and gave them a pinched expression.   


"What's going on?" Keith asked them.   


At hearing Keith's voice Allura paused her fingers and turned with a sudden smile only for it to disappear again when she noticed Keith was with Lance. Ouch.   


Keith paid no attention to that and where Lance stopped a distance away, Keith went straight up to Allura, pulling her eyes back to him.   


"We're going with the original plan. We'll capture the Prince to lure Zarkon out," she said looking up at Keith's eyes.   


"What happened to asking the Blade about him?" he asked.   


"I did," Coran piped up. "The Princess used her access codes to listen to my meeting with Kolivan from her room. Clearly she came to her own conclusions before we could all discuss what was said," he looked at the Princess in question pointedly.   


"You did what?" Lance asked, completely shocked that she'd go this far.   


Allura completely ignored him and grabbed Keith's hand in both of hers, holding it to her chest. "Keith, I really think this is for the best. The Prince has been conquering planets in Zarkon's name for years. Not only would capturing him help us get to Zarkon, but we would finally have physical proof to all of the peoples the Galra have hurt that we _can_ and _will_ bring the Galra to justice," she assured him.   


Lance swiftly got between the two and broke their hands apart with a downward stroke of his arm. "Don't just ignore me, Princess!" Their hands together boiled his blood even more than being ignored. "What do you plan on doing with the Prince really?! Will you hang him?!"  


"Wait!" Keith placed a hand on Lance's chest and moved him aside so that he could look at Allura properly again.   


Lance was ready to argue with him too but Keith quickly went on.   


"What did Kolivan say?" he asked.   


Lance looked back to Allura thinking that maybe Keith was using a better tactic than Lance's fly-off-the-rails strategy after all.   


"Exactly what I just said," she insisted.   


"No. Was there something else?" he persisted.   


The doors to the bridge whooshed back open again and Lance looked over to see Pidge followed not all that far behind by Hunk. Both of them looked at the scene in front of them and stopped short of getting too close.   


"Allura," Keith said when she averted her eyes. She tried to hold out on saying any more, but perhaps because it was Keith who was asking, she couldn't for very long.   


"There... may have been more," she admitted.   


"So what did he say?" Lance asked without leaving a beat.   


"I asked if he knew of a Prince, half Galran, half something else," Coran supplied. "Kolivan said that Zarkon did have a half-breed son and that Zarkon raised him with the intent of making him his heir. That Prince's name was Lotor and Zarkon put him in charge of conquering worlds with specific resources. He was put in charge of overseeing the mining operations."  


"See!" Allura interjected.   


"Wait, I'm not finished yet," Coran spoke before she could continue. "The rumor is that for some reason, it's not known what the reason is, Zarkon did not like the job Lotor was doing. Zarkon punished him by exiling him from the Empire and he hasn't been seen or heard from much since."  


Lance turned to Allura with his hands on his hips. "That doesn't seem so cut and dry to me."  


Allura looked confused. "I'm not quite certain what that idiom means, but what I said is still true. He did conquer planets in Zarkon's name."  


"But we don't know why Zarkon exiled him!" Hunk came up by Lance's side. Lance felt a boost of confidence in his position with Hunk's agreeance.   


Allura addressed Hunk, "But we know that he was doing Zarkon's dirty work oppressing people and forcing them to work in mines."  


"But we don't know that, we only know that he was _assigned_ to do that and that Zarkon didn't like whatever he actually did! Enough to exile him for it!" Hunk threw back. Lance nodded vigorously at his best friend's point.   


"Kolivan did say that information on the Prince was very scarce. Zarkon wanted to erase his son from his legacy," Coran informed them.   


Allura let out a long breath through her nose with her teeth clenched tightly. She looked back at Keith, pleading with her eyes. Keith looked like he had no idea what to do. Lance looked at him too with a glared, daring him to side with her.   


"Hey!" Pidge shouted from behind the party. They all turned to look at her. She was scowling but no one was sure quite why. "The only way to find out what happened is to ask the Prince himself, right?"  


Everyone stayed silent, only staring at her.   


"Well?" she asked and gestured to the space outside the window. "Should we go ask him?"   


"I suppose number five has a point here," Coran twirled his mustache in thought.   


"But... It's too dangerous to simply _ask_ him!" Allura insisted. "We should capture him and liberate the planet, then we can ask him. The planet has the ore we need to fix the Castle. If we liberate them, perhaps we can then make a deal."  


"You should also know that the Princess just sent a message to the Blade of Marmora instructing them to meet us within fighting range of the Prince," Coran spoke without a second thought toward Allura's pride.   


All of the paladins turned incredulous eyes toward her.   


"You don't think that's something you should have at least asked us about?" Pidge came up beside Hunk.   


Allura was trying to avoid eye contact like she knew she had done something wrong. "Do you want to go after the Prince or not? Please make up your mind," Allura told her instead.   


The Garrison trio intensified their looks at the Princess, crowding her in a more intimidating move than any of them could have pulled off alone. The Princess tried backing away from them but she was too near the console to get any distance. She kept up her best effort in avoiding all eye contact, but for once in quite a while, the three were in sync again.   


"Allura," Lance began.   


"Stop it!" Keith suddenly got between the three and Allura. He scowled at them like he had the authority to reprimand their behavior.   


"You don't have to—" Allura started to say but cut herself off with an upset look at her feet. She resigned herself to something and with teary eyes, hid her face between Keith's shoulder blades.   


At seeing Allura's odd closeness with Keith, Pidge and Hunk glanced at each other, communicating a _what the hell?_ Not because it was wrong, but because it was odd. And because... Hunk quickly checked Lance. Lance was glaring a hole through Keith's chest, perhaps trying to take Keith and Allura out in one shot. But then Lance looked Keith in the face with an expression of utter betrayal.   


"Keith!" Lance yelled incredulously.   


"Guys, we need to think this through," Keith told them.   


"Tell that to Allura!"   


"Lance has a point, Keith! She's the one doing things without thinking! Stop protecting her and don't tell us off!" Pidge asserted.   


"No, wait, don't yell," Keith put a hand in his hair and looked down. "I'm trying to— Just let me think."  


Knowing that neither would respect Keith's request, Hunk put a hand on Lance and Pidge's shoulders. They looked up at him but Hunk studied Keith's contemplative expression first before giving them a quiet "Wait, guys."  


They waiting for Keith's next move. He took a while before he looked back at the three with a set brow. Had he decided something?   


"How many Galra ships were in orbit around the planet?"  


Pidge blinked. "None," she answered.   


"Okay, what about Galra bases on the surface? Communication towers?"  


"There weren't any," Hunk supplied.   


"No?" Keith put his chin to his hand and looked down in thought again.   


"There was one Galra ship's signature on the surface. I assumed it was the Prince's," Pidge clarified.   


"It... doesn't seem like the planet's been taken over at all. But he said he would protect it," Keith thought out loud. "I think we should try talking to him," he finally announced.   


Allura came out of hiding and pulled Keith's arm so they could see each other and she could object. "But—"  


"I know he could call for back up if he wants to. If he sends any transmission, it'll have to come from his ship. We can watch it and if anything happens we can either go for the capture or retreat."  


Allura's expression shifted through shocked to reluctantly grateful. Lance and Pidge both folded their arms but didn't say anything.   


"How did you plan on getting us to this planet?" Keith asked her.   


"I'd open a portal and the lions would push us through in place of our missing thruster."  


"Would that work?" he sounded skeptical.   


"It could," Coran thought about it. "It would be easy with Voltron, but I can't say how many of the lions individually it would take."  


"Okay, what time will the Blade be there?"  


"I'm awaiting their encoded transmission. I requested that they arrive as soon as they are able," Allura had the sense to look mildly ashamed.   


There was a beep from the console behind her. She turned and opened the message.   


"They will arrive in forty doboshes."  


"Tell them that when they arrive, they should hold their fire until we give the word."  


Allura did as Keith said and sent an encoded message back.   


"You should suit up," Keith looked at Allura's regal attire.   


"Why?" Allura questioned.   


"Because you and Coran are the strongest on the ship. If we capture the Prince and bring him onto the ship, you can help restrain him. And since there are less of us... we might need your help to fight," Keith added slowly.   


"Won't having the Blade with their weapons aimed and ready be a little intense for just talking?" Hunk asked.   


"We're going ten doboshes early."

"Tío!" Lance cheered as he opened the door before anyone else could get to it.   


"Lance!" his uncle lifted him into a bear hug with the biggest grin on his face. He put him back down and then measured where Lance's head came up on his torso. "How have you grown so much? I can barely lift you!"  


Lance laughed joyfully. "I'm nine now, that's how!"  


"And you're so skinny! I assume you ran off all of your baby fat!" his uncle observed Lance bouncing in front of him out of excitement.   


"Tío is here!" Verónica came barreling through the house and attacked her uncle much in the same way Lance had.   


"Oh, my favorite niece!" he hugged her just as hard as he had hugged Lance.   


"Fernán?" their mother came at the unexpected appearance of her brother-in-law.   


Their uncle put Verónica down in order to give their mother a hug and a kiss on the cheek.   


"I didn't know you'd be coming, I haven't prepared any special food!"  


"Ramira, you know you don't have to do anything special for me," he said humbly.   


"Fernán!" their father came and hugged his brother as well.   


"Cedro!" Fernán clapped the man on his back. "Are your older boys here?" he looked around toward the stair that led to the kids' rooms.   


"They're both out right now," Ramira informed him. "What are you doing here?" she asked.   


The man shifted from foot to foot. "Well..." he said hesitantly.   


Ramira instantly knew where this was going. She looked to her youngest children, both hanging off of one of their uncle's arms each. "Verónica, Lance, it's a nice day out, why don't you go play outside. Or better yet, go down to the beach," she offered.   


"Why? Tío just got here and we haven't seen him in ages!" Verónica said the exact words Lance wanted to before he could say them. Lance challenged Verónica with a look and started climbing up his uncle's side. His uncle laughed at them.   


"Verónica, Lance! Out, now!" their mother demanded.   


Both children were startled by their mother's tone and quickly detached themselves from their uncle and scurried out the back door. They rounded the corner of the house that would take them to the beach but then made eye contact and turned around. They had to keep up appearances so that the adults would actually talk.   


They crept back to just to the side of the screen door so that they could listen in. In the time it had taken them to run in a circle, their parents had shown their uncle to the dinning table.   


"Hermano, what's going on?" their father asked in clear concern.   


"Cedro, I was transporting a family with kids and they were caught," their uncle answered in distress. "We were hiding and they found them but they hadn't found me and I wanted to save them, I really did, but like a coward I stayed where I was!"  


"Fernán, you can't blame yourself for that," their mother tried to comfort him.   


"Maybe you should stop smuggling people out of the country. It's too dangerous. If you get caught, we'll never here from you again. You should be grateful you weren't found out too," their father insisted.   


Lance looked to Verónica in shock at this news but Verónica kept listening intently.   


"I know you think I'm going about this the wrong way, Cedro! You have your government job and you get things for people by bribing politicians to look the other way! I get it! But I can't do what you do, this is my way to help. I know how to do this, so how can I turn families away when they ask me?!" he made a sniffling noise. "I see your beautiful children whenever a family with kids comes to me."  


"Fernán, I understand, this is your way. What can I do to help?" Cedro asked.   


"If I give you the families information, can you get them released?"  


"That... could be quite difficult."  


"Impossible?"  


"Improbable," their father answered truthfully. "But if it will ease your heart, I will try."  


"Thank you, Cedro, mi hermano!"  


"Cedro, this will be dangerous?" their mother asked, sounding like she knew full well.   


"Yes, mi amor."  


"Then be careful," is all she said. 

"It's almost time. Is everyone clear on the plan?" Keith asked the room at large.   


Everyone nodded but there was clearly still tension between all of them. Then Lance had to go and make it worse.   


"I see only one problem with your plan. I won't fly the red lion. If you want three lions pushing the Castle, then you'll have to go out there in the black lion," Lance stated.   


Everyone looked between him and Keith, not wanting any part in this particular argument.   


Keith was slow to respond. "I need to stay here for when we talk to the Prince," he stated  


"Oh, yeah! That's a great idea, since you're so good with people," Lance said sarcastically.   


"And you're any better like this? One minute we're fine and the next you snap at me! Just stick to the plan, Lance."  


"You know I've always been better with people! It sounds to me like the real problem is that you don't want to fly the black lion," Lance continued the argument.   


Keith looked away from Lance. "I'll fly the black lion when it's time, but I should be here so that you don't feel like you have to fight with Allura. I'll keep her from making threats and I'll make sure Kolivan doesn't fire without probable cause," he promised. Allura looked to the floor at that.   


"I can't trust that she won't convince you to change your mind! Since you two became _friends_ , you always take her side! You let her get away with everything!" Lance contested.   


"Coran will still be here, he wouldn't let that happen. And even so, you should trust that I can stick to my own decisions!"  


"I can't trust you because you still don't believe that a Galra can just be good!" Lance shouted, stunning everyone.   


Keith growled low in his throat but then tried changing tactics. "If you ignore Red, she'll get mad at you," he explained.   


"I don't care."  


Keith flared his nostrils in a puff of anger. "You don't care? Then what was the point in her saving you?! Like I said, you always do this! Now you're treating her like you treated me!" he yelled scathingly.   


Lance didn't back down. "Don't project your feelings onto this situation! She's not my lion, so I won't fly her, it's as simple as that!" Right after the words had left Lance's mouth, he suddenly clutched at his chest like he was in pain.   


"Lance, are you okay?!" Hunk immediately went to help him.   


"I'm fine!" Lance brushed Hunk aside. He glared up at Keith with clenched teeth. "You're cheating," he accused.   


Keith crossed his arms. "I'm not doing anything. I can't feel her at all anymore. This is your own fault for provoking the lion with the worst temper."  


"She gets that from you!" Lance straighten himself with pain and anger on his face.   


"Not anymore, now she gets it from you!" Keith pointed a finger at him.   


Lance lunged at Keith with a screech before anyone could stop him. The two were then on the floor of the bridge kicking, punching, biting and scratching, all the while, pulling off pieces of each other's armor so that they could inflict actual damage.   


"Keith! No wait!" Allura yelled.   


"Lance! Stop it! It's not Keith's fault!" Pidge tried pulling one of Lance's arms away.  


"Guys! We shouldn't fight like this!" Hunk desperately tried to separate them.   


They kept fighting, Keith biting Lance's hand when it got too close and Lance pulling Keith's hair trying to get him off, each making inhuman sounds when anyone tried interfering. It took both Alteans with their naturally superior strength to pry the two apart and hold them away from each other as they still tried lashing out.   


"Paladins should not—!"  


"I thought you wanted to be friends!" Keith shouted at Lance over Allura trying to berate them while he struggled in her fierce hold.   


"I do!" Lance shouted back, trying to lunge angrily at him, not being able to break from Coran. Everyone else who had wanted to say something to the two, shut up promptly.   


"Then why?!" Keith yelled back.   


"I don't know!" Lance shouted in anguish and finally went slack in Coran's arms and hung his head.   


Keith stopped thrashing and looked Lance over carefully. They had both done quite a bit of damage to each other. Lance had bite marks and scratches all up his arms and one of his ears was bleeding. Keith knew his own lip was bleeding and that Lance had given him bruises all over his face and body. Why had it come to this? They had never fought like this before. Keith knew what it was like to not know why you had hurt someone. He had always had a terrifying monster lurking inside of him that appeared at the worst of times. He'd been thinking it was his Galra side since finding out about his true heritage, but if Lance had one too, it couldn't be that.   


Keith made a decision. "Hunk, Pidge, get to your lions," he ordered. Lance looked back up at him and they made eye contact. Keith saw bruises forming on Lance's face, something he never wanted to see. "You and I will stay on the bridge," he looked from one of Lance's blue eyes to the other. "And... if two lions isn't enough, I'll go out and help them."  


Lance's eyes widened like he couldn't understand why Keith was saying these things.   


"But Keith," Allura objected with some hesitancy.   


Keith stood properly and when he made to turn around, Allura let him go. "If you can't trust Lance right now, then trust my judgement," he told her.   


Seeing how everyone was calming down Coran let Lance go too. Pidge brought over some of the pieces of Lance's armor for him to put back on. He seemed like he was almost in a trance as he accepted each piece and put where it should go. Hunk came over and tentatively inspected the marks on Lance's face.   


"Don't look at me like that, I'm not the only one whose hurt," Lance whispered so that only Hunk could hear. Hunk looked over at Keith who had yet to collect the missing pieces of his armor.   


"It's not only that. You and Lance look a bit... disheveled," Allura put it diplomatically.   


Keith ran a hand through his hair and then shook his head so that it fell into place wherever it wanted. "Ignore it," Keith told her. "Act like nothing's strange."  


Allura made an exasperated sound. "Well at least let me fix this," she started fussing with his hair.   


Lance saw this exchange and looked away.   


"Lance, are you okay, buddy?" Hunk asked him quietly. Him and Pidge were staring at Lance.   


"I don't know," Lance answered honestly.   


"Hunk, Pidge," Keith got their attention as he started picking up his armor by himself. "We don't have much time, get going."  


Neither moved for a few seconds. Pidge looked at Keith and made a decision of her own. "Okay," she said. She reached for one of his upper arm and shoulder pieces and handed it to him.   


Keith eyed her, as if trying to determine her intentions and then accepted the piece. "Thank you," he said.   


She nodded and then jogged to the chute that led to her lion and disappeared.   


Hunk looked between everyone in the room unsurely. He caught sight of Coran catching Allura's eyes and then her looking down at the floor. Keith was openly staring at him waiting for him to make his own decision. Lance was no help at all since he was still in his own head thinking about who knows what.   


Finally, Allura bravely looked back up at him. "Well, you heard him."  


Hunk looked from Allura to Keith who looked at Allura with something interesting in his eyes. Then he looked from Keith to Coran who was staring at Allura with a soft smile on his face.   


"Right," he finally decided and then nodded to Keith and left down his own chute.   


Keith stood still for a while as the rest looked at him. He was hesitating. Why? Maybe because he still didn't want this. But eventually, "Allura, take the helm."  


She stepped onto her podium without complaint, wearing her white and pink armor with her hair tied up and out of her face.   


"Coran, once we make it through, stay at tactical just in case," Keith ordered.   


Coran went to his console and prepared to isolate the broken thruster so that it wouldn't try turning on.   


Lance picked up the last piece of Keith's armor he had ripped off, the right hand glove. He looked at it for a bit before offering it to Keith. Keith stared at Lance without moving.   


"I guess we took the whole 'I shoot things, you cut things' too far this time, huh?" Lance joked, but even he couldn't manage a smile.   


Keith continued staring, nonreactive. Lance tried staring back at him but it proved too difficult.   


Eventually, Keith grabbed the hand piece from him and put it on. "Stay with me for a while, okay?" he whispered to Lance.   


Lance's gaze snapped back to him and he his expression turned pained and remorseful, like he want to ask Keith why, but he didn't dare open his mouth. Instead, he nodded his head minutely.   


"I'm ready," Allura announced.   


"Our two remaining thrusters are ready to come online," Coran followed.   


Keith put his helmet on so that he could hear the mics. "Pidge, Hunk?"  


"We're in position," Pidge confirmed.   


Keith looked over at Lance and made a motion to him with his head. Somehow, Lance knew exactly what Keith was telling him. Lance put on his helmet too.   


"Okay," Keith took a breath like he was preparing himself. "Allura, open a portal."  


Allura summoned her power and a soft blue light enveloped her, moving over the two staves that would harness her energy to the teledav. A bright light began appearing in front of the ship and it expanded and expanded.   


"The portal is ready."  


"Coran, you'll start the thrusters slowly and Pidge and Hunk, you'll start pushing when I say," Keith waited for confirmation. When he got it, "Now!"  


The thrusters came online and the Castle began inching forward. As the speed increased, the ship started veering to one side and the portal began disappearing from view.   


"Hunk, Pidge, you'll have to push harder," Keith said.   


"I know! Trying hard here!" Pidge said through her efforts.   


"Coran, back off on the thrusters a bit," Keith suggested. The Castle slowed down in its turn but it wasn't righting its direction. "Can you guys give it any more?"  


"I'm pushing as hard as I can!" Hunk roughly breathed out.   


"It's not enough!" Pidge responded.   


"You may be inclined to hurry, I can't hold a portal open forever," Allura said sharply, like she was trying hard not to hold her breath in her exertion.   


Keith took another important breath. "Okay, I'm coming out." Keith turned to go.   


"I'll come with you," Lance spoke up, stopping him.   


Keith searched Lance's face. "What do you mean?" he asked.   


"I'll stay with you," Lance said with a air of determination.   


Keith slowly churned out his response. "That would leave Allura with just Coran."  


"Yes, but, things are different now," Lance glanced at Allura and back.   


"Yeah, they are."  


"Just tell Allura not to start without us," Lance gave a half smile.   


Keith let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "You heard that?" he called to Allura.   


"Yes, now if you could please hurry up, this is much more difficult when the Castle is facing away from the portal!" she urged.   


They each went to their own precipice, neither had been down them before. They held their breaths as they looked down the sloping tunnels. In sync, they looked to one another, gave a nod and took the step they wouldn't take back, disappearing from the bridge.  


As soon as Keith's pilot chair rolled into place, Lance's face appeared on he screen.   


"You were right. She's pissed at me," Lance admitted.   


"She'll get over it as long as you're sorry," he advised.   


"I think I can tell," Lance thought out loud.   


"Okay," Keith refocused his attention. "Together then?" he asked.   


"Yeah," Lance agreed.   


They looked at each other for confirmation and then gripped the controls in front of them. The lions responded to them in turn and neither paladin was sure how to feel.   


"Keith?"  


"Yeah?"  


"...Red is sensitive."  


"I know."  


They took the lions out of their hangers and flew to the other side of the ship.   


"Hurry up already!" Pidge complained as she saw them round the corner.   


"Okay, Lance, we have to start slowly, don't push too hard," Keith told him.   


"I already know."   


They placed their lions' paws next to where Green and Yellow were and started pushing forward. When they didn't immediately move, they pushed a bit harder until the Castle started turning back to face the portal.   


"Coran, let us know when we're aligned again," Keith requested.   


"A little more, a little more," Coran started guiding them. "Aaaand, we're even!"  


"Okay, start increasing the power on the thrusters. Paladins, wait a few seconds and then push harder together."  


The thrusters started pushing them forward.   


"Now, guys!"  


They all pushed together, the Castle started gaining speed. Once past the boarder of the portal, the paladins had to punch it to keep up with the Castleship being pulled along by the wormhole. Everyone gritted their teeth in focus until Allura let out a sigh of over the comm when she could release the staves of her podium. They were through.   


On the outskirts of the solar system, the small orange and blue planet they were looking for wasn't close enough to be seen. They were hidden behind a gas giant with a strong magnetic field to provide them with interference from scans.   


"Alright, Lance, let's get back on the bridge. Then we'll start the real plan," Keith took the black lion in.   


"Sure thing, leader," was Lance's response. It was the first time he had called him that without a hint of sarcasm. None of them were confident with this, but that was a good start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long chapter after the long break. 
> 
> Sometimes I'm not sure how much I should share on the internet but... my uncle died from cancer very unexpectedly. He and I were living in different countries, so with everything going on, I couldn't attend his funeral. It took me a while, but I'm doing alright. And wouldn't you know it, I suddenly cranked out this chapter in just a few days.
> 
> I still love writing and I love these characters, so I'm glad if any of you stick around with me. Thanks for reading, guys.


End file.
